


when the stars are the only things we share

by jamiemoriartys



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, apologies in advance, kind of au/kind of following the tv storyline, the whole gang basically but those are major chars in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-02-24 12:24:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2581361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamiemoriartys/pseuds/jamiemoriartys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy knows lots of words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All the credit for these words and their wonderful definitions go to [The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows](http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/). The title is from _Atlas Hands_ by Benjamin Francis Leftwich.
> 
> edit dec 21st, 2015: i'm looking to rewrite this story due the unbelievable amount of grammar issues and general brain farts. i apologise

> **prologue: beginning (n.)**

He finds it when he’s eleven. It’s behind a loose wall panel—a loose wall panel he’d have no idea of if some bigger Walden kid hadn’t just pushed him into the wall—and it looks old as balls. _It’s a book_ , he tells himself, _a hand-written book_. He reads words and definitions to the words, and when he’s done, he reads them again and again and again until in the age of fourteen, he can remember them all by heart. His mum tries telling him that they’re not real words anyway, but when he asks her to just let him have this, she sighs with a smile, softly shaking her head in defeat.


	2. Chapter 2

> **liberosis (n.)**

Bellamy quite likes the Earth. He knows it from the moment he steps out of the dropship. He feels free, realising that he had never been free, and suddenly, he feels the weight of everything fall off his shoulders—his mum’s death, keeping Octavia as a secret, Shumway giving him the gun, shooting Jaha, arguing with the little whiny blonde he had just met… nothing matters. He breathes in and out, fighting the urge to spread his arms and greet the sun like a total weird fucking idiot, and he laughs.

Even the little whiny blonde— _she really needs a shorter nickname_ , he tells himself—who pushes him out of her way can’t ruin his mood.

He’s been so tired for so long. He can’t remember the last time he had walked the hallways of the Ark without having to glance over his shoulder just in case, or the last time he hasn’t had the guilt eating away his insides, or the last time he has fallen asleep with ease.

For the first time in forever, he feels free, and he fucking loves the feeling.

So _whatever the hell we want_ becomes a thing pretty quickly. With him in the frontline, most the 100 get rid of the wristbands and say their goodbyes to the Ark. It’s not hard, after all everybody but Bellamy was sent here to pretty much die against their will.

Everything’s going well until Octavia comes back with a fucking tear in her thigh and the little whiny blonde— _Princess_ , Bellamy figures—tells him they lost Jasper. He doesn’t know who Jasper is until she tells him about the scrawny guy with the weird goggles. And to be honest, he doesn’t really give a shit about this Jasper guy, but Octavia insists and Princess is still wearing her wristband and he’s the only one with a gun, so he goes to look for this spear-in-the-chest-Jasper guy anyway.

How Princess ends up going with loverboy and Bellamy with Jaha Junior, he doesn’t know. Turns out, Wells loves Clarke, a lot. And hey, Bellamy’s no expert, really, but he gives Jaha Junior proper relationship advice anyway. It’s not like he gives a shit if Wells gets a shot to fix things with Clarke or not. Bellamy just wants the wristband.

But holy shit, they weren’t lying about spear-in-the-chest-Jasper. Why he is tied to a tree like a fucking bait, Bellamy, again, doesn’t know. And doesn’t think he even wants to know. All he knows is that Princess is running towards the bait, and the expected happening. He grabs her just in time, and can’t help but wonder why.

She looks up to him, her light eyes studying his dark ones, and he’s pretty sure she’s trying to figure out if she can trust him or not. Which is pretty fucking dumb considering that at the moment, Bellamy is pretty much holding her life in his hands. Or in one hand, which makes things even worse. So Princess should just trust him.

Before she can make a decision, Murphy, Finn and Wells rush to help him—as if he can’t pull one tiny whiny blonde up all alone—and they get Clarke up on the ground. Pretty soon afterwards, Wells wastes all of Bellamy’s bullets, and even if the Chancellor’s son had just saved his life, he’s fucking pissed.

So they just get Jasper, and then they’re fucking out of there.

Of course, back in the camp, Octavia is making out with Atom, and Bellamy is just so honest to God angry with everything and everyone that he just straight up ties him up on a tree and leaves him hanging there for the whole night.

Then the whole shit with Charlotte and Wells and Murphy happens, and they are all looking at him like he’s the fucking leader. Even Princess has that look in her eyes, and he doesn’t know what the fuck he is supposed to do. He’s supposed to feel free, to _be_ free. And here he is, supposed to say the last word, supposed to deal with the shitty part. Supposed to be the responsible one. _How fucking amazing_ , that’s all he can think when he looks around himself.

He breathes in, turning everything else off for a moment, closing his eyes.

 _Liberosis_ , he thinks. _Noun. The desire to care less about things—to loosen your grip on your life, to stop glancing behind you every few steps._ His mind writes the words on the insides of his eyelids like an old typewriter. They appear letter by letter, and they bring him comfort. His hands clench into fists, and the decision to force himself not to care is made.

He breathes out, opening his eyes, and sends Murphy to his death, blaming it on Princess.

Except Murphy doesn’t die and Princess almost dies and Charlotte dies.

Bellamy doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, but he knows _whatever the hell we want_ isn’t what he wants anymore. Not if he has to be the one paying the price, not if he has to be the one they look at when they’ve gone too far.

He just wants a goddamn break, he just wants not to care for a while. He wants to go to sleep and never wake up. Or maybe wake up when it’s all over or something.

Bellamy just wants to be free.

He stays up all night, thoughts in his head running far too fast—he starts with himself, hoping to become one with the dark, to leave the camp, to become nobody; and ends with the 100, wondering how they are going to survive winter or even autumn, to deal with the grounders, to manage with him and Princess leading. He hates himself for it, for letting his thoughts go from selfish to selfless, for caring so fucking much.

Princess steps into his tent at the first light, finding him simply lying there.

 “Morning?”

Her voice is quiet and like a question, and Bellamy snaps out of whatever he had been in for the whole night. His eyes meet hers, and she looks so, so tired. He reckons it’s because it’s early morning, because she has just woken up, and he feels somewhat satisfied to know that his tent is where she crawls into first thing in the morning—of course, she wakes him up every single morning, but she never does it at the first light, so she must check on him, at first light. Or maybe this is just an exception. He doesn’t know, and actually he doesn’t even know why it suddenly matters to him.

“Hey”, he replies, softly enough to make her frown, because that’s not like him at all. He knows she knows he’s always grumpy in the morning, always yearning to sleep in. He also knows she doesn’t know he knows she likes her mornings calm and quiet, and that’s why she wakes up before everybody else. So for once, when he’s not grumpy, he’s going to be calm and quiet with her.

“You shouldn’t be up yet”, she totally accidentally confesses watching him while he sleeps in the mornings, and sits on one of the containers he has in his tent.

“How do you know? Do you know my sleep cycle? Are you watching me while I sleep, Princess?” he chuckles quietly, clearly amused, and quirks up an eyebrow as he props up on his elbows. She turns her head, groaning, and he swears she blushes just a little bit. He chuckles again, gets up—to her surprise, fully dressed, because a leader can never know when he’s needed—and moves to sit next to her. She hands him a bag of berries and another bag of nuts, and they eat their breakfast in silence until she breaks it to discuss about supplies.

It’s comforting, and Bellamy figures it’s not too bad to be the one calling the shots and barking orders, not when she’s standing by his side. He thinks of _liberosis_ , and scoffs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all feedback is v v v welcome


	3. Chapter 3

> **parô (n.)**

It gets worse, and oddly enough, Bellamy isn’t really even surprised. He never knew he’s absolutely amazing—don’t get him wrong, he always knew he was decent at it, alright—when it comes to making bad decisions and having bad ideas, but he’s pretty sure now he knows—judging by the red hand mark on his cheek and the unsalvageable radio drifting in the river water.

Okay, maybe he hadn't thought either decision completely through—neither sleeping with three chicks behind each other’s backs at the same time nor throwing the angry space mechanic chick’s radio into the stream. He just wanted to live a little, to stop being so afraid of the Ark and everything. And being the 23-year-old he is, sex and preventing the Ark from contacting his little kingdom had both sounded like great ideas.

But now majority of the chicks in the camp are all angry with him—some for different reasons, like Princess and the angry space mechanic chick—and he’s frustrated and angry, too. Even the fact that the Chancellor is still alive doesn’t make him feel any better. Or, well, he supposes shooting Jaha wasn’t as bad of a decision he had originally thought it was. Since he is, you know, still alive and all.

He really doesn’t want to budge, he doesn’t want to send any sort of signs to the Ark. He knows he’ll be fucking floated—or probably just killed, considering this is the Earth, and he can already come up with dozens and dozens ways to die, and all of them are worse than getting floated—no matter what, you don’t just get away with shooting the Chancellor.

But then Princess gives him this look, and it’s a mess of pity and disbelief and disgust and everything else, and Bellamy feels so fucking shitty he gives up—he kicks down the table next to Clarke, giving her a death glare, and leaves. _Whatever the hell she wants_ , then.

He’s not sure what’s wrong with them. They can’t—or won’t, maybe—stop fighting. It’s not even about winning, about being better than the other. They both know who’s playing the good cop and who’s not. But they fight and fight and fight—neither one willing to be the first to crack, to shatter under the weight of hatred—and they absolutely can’t stop.

But it’s something, and to Bellamy, something is better than nothing. It’s oddly comforting to know he can’t go anywhere but wrong with Princess, and yet she won’t budge, won’t go away. He keeps making the wrong decision, and she keeps letting him do it again and again and again.

When Octavia goes missing, he realises it runs in the family—their mum, him, Octavia, and all of their wrongs. It’s gut-wrenching to realise, it makes him feel sick.

And Princess has the same look in her eyes when he returns with Octavia, unconscious Finn, and the bodies of John, Roma and Diggs. She hurries to them, and he can see she’s on the very edge of breaking down—it is Finn after all, loverboy, her precious Spacewalker. Bellamy holds him in his arms, knowing there’s nothing he can do. She looks at him, her eyes practically screaming _what were you thinking?_ at him. He lets go, just a little too easily, giving Finn to whoever Clarke had barked orders at, and he looks at his hands, his bloody, calloused hands, and he finds himself disappointed it’s not his blood.

His fingers curl into his palms and suddenly, he has his hands clenched into tights fists, nails digging into his skin. He’s staring after Clarke until he spots Octavia, rushing towards the gate. She insists to go see the grounder, the one that had almost fucking killed Bellamy, and she insists the grounder—the one that had almost fucking killed Bellamy, in case you forgot—saved her life. So he confronts her, and he feels like he’s making a good point until she screams at him, tells him stop blaming her for his mistakes.

And it fucking stings, feels like someone just punched him in his chest with a dagger.

“If Finn dies in there, that’s on _you_!”

And then twisted the dagger.

He all but recalls when he had told it to Princess, that Murphy dying in the hands of the mob—or at least, was supposed to die—was on her, and he idly wonders if he had made her feel like this.

“Everything that’s gone wrong is because of _you_. _You_ got me locked up on the Ark, _you_ wanted me to go to that stupid dance, _you_ got mom killed!”

The _you_ s turns into knives as she spits them out, and he’s pretty sure they’re going to leave scars. And he doesn’t know what to do, so he chuckles. He fucking chuckles, venomous and wicked, and turns back to his sister.

“Me”, he repeats, because it’s not like Octavia had ever been his mistake, “mom was floated for having you. She’s dead, because you’re alive. That was _her_ choice. _I_ didn’t have a choice. _My life_ _ended_ the day you were born.”

And he regrets the words as soon as they spill, he prays he could take them back. He feels fucking dead inside, and the way Octavia is looking at him isn’t helping. Well, he supposes he deserves it, considering he’s the one that made her look at him like that.

He starts with Roma, carries her body to their little graveyard, and when he has all three of them—Roma, Diggs and John—there, he starts digging.

 _Parô_ , he thinks. _Noun. The feeling that no matter what you do is always somehow wrong—as if there’s some obvious way forward that everybody else can see but you, each of them leaning back in their chair and calling out helpfully, colder, colder, colder._

With each _colder_ , his shovel hits the ground with more force. He can see Princess, wearing this smug, knowing smile—he knows she’d never wear this kind of a smile in real life, she’s far too kind, far too smart—and just laughing at him like he’s a blind man in a maze. _Just a blind man, leading a herd of other blinds_ , he realises, pushing John’s body into the first grave. He doesn’t want to accept the fact—ha, when it had become a fact?—that he _needs_ Clarke Griffin. He doesn’t want to admit that he needs her, so he admits it just a little bit: the 100 is a lot to deal with at times, he couldn’t possibly do it alone anyway.

 _The 90_ , he corrects himself as he kicks dirt over Roma’s lifeless corpse. He’s angry, angry at himself for not managing to keep his people alive, for making the choices that made them die. He throws the shovel away, with enough force to make it dig into the ground and stick up, and drops on his knees, pushing the dirt into the graves with his bare hands. And he wants to scream, scream his fucking lungs out because it sucks and it fucking hurts, but he can’t.

“Bellamy.”

Her call startles him, and he refuses to look over his shoulder. He knows it’s Princess, and he knows he doesn’t want her to see him like this. He pushes one more pile of dirt into the grave and gets up, wiping his cheek with the back of his hands. It’s wet, and for a moment he wonders if he had fucking cried, but then he looks at Princess, and realises it’s _rain_.

He looks at Princess, and he can still feel the dagger in his chest.

There’s blood smeared on her forehead, cheeks, jaw, nose even, and then there’s more on her neck, collarbones, chest, and Bellamy really shouldn’t look any further. His eyes shoot up to meet hers, and God, they’re both so exhausted and this leader thing sure sucks.

“Finn?”

He tells himself that he doesn’t ask because he cares, that he asks because he wants to know if he needs to dig another grave. _89, 89, 89_ , he thinks.

“I don’t know”, she says, voice not breaking, and he idly wonders if she really cares either. He looks at her hands, how she’s picking the skin around her nails like she always does when she’s nervous—not that Bellamy knows that—and fuck, there’s so much blood on her hands. _She cares_ , he guesses, and looks down to his own calloused hands—bloody and now covered in dirt, too.

It’s ironic, really, how the blood on her hands means she cares and the blood on his hands means he doesn’t.

“We need to get inside. There’s a storm coming”, she says, and he knows she cares. She leads him inside, and it’s like she decided to show him his most recent mistakes, to put them on display—Finn with the grounder knife in his chest and Raven fighting with the radio system she had put together. He’s angry, decides to try to right his wrongs. He grabs Drew and Miller, and he’s pretty sure he knows the way to the grounder’s cave by heart.

The thing puts up a fight when they get to his cave, but this time Bellamy is smarter and more prepared, and it’s three fighters against one.

The pang of pride in his chest starts to hurt only when Princess gives him the look she always does, “this is not who we are.”

He looks around himself, because yeah, this is not who they are.

This is who _he_ is.

It’s not until Princess is down on her knees, begging and forcing herself not to sob, when Bellamy decides that this is not who he wants her to be. That she’s better than this, that she doesn’t need to see this, that she doesn’t need to do this.

He feels himself softening, placing a hand on her shoulder, burying it in her tangle of curls, a whisper of her name escaping his lips. She moves away like his touch is fire, and he really doesn’t want her to be here, to see this, to see _him_ like this.

He’s so fucking sorry.

Every whip of a seatbelt is a new addition to the ever-growing list of bad decisions made by Bellamy Blake. Still, he keeps going and going and going, feeling worse and worse and worse.

He feels fucking desperate, piercing the grounder’s palm, but he’s not going to let Finn die.

In the end, it’s Octavia who saves the situation, makes the right decision. And he wants to fucking scream, cry, break down, because he’s a fucking monster and he doesn’t know how he got this way.

But Finn is alive, and Princess’ eyes are only little hollow when Bellamy looks into them, telling her that who they are and who they need to be to survive are very different things. There’s blood all over her shirt, arms, fingers, and his fingers linger just a little too long.

“It’s not easy being in charge, is it”, he says, and it’s not a question, because he knows it isn’t and she knows it isn’t. She looks at her, and he can’t stand her light eyes—hardened, darkened by the purple under them, accusing and desperate—so he leaves, his fingers leave hers.

He wishes he could’ve kept the light in her eyes.

He makes himself promise, that no matter what, he won’t let Princess end up like this, won’t let her go this far. And for the first time in years, he feels like he’s making a right instead of a wrong. Sadly enough, he doesn’t know what the opposite of _parô_ is.


	4. Chapter 4

> **ecstatic shock (n.)**

Things are kind of weird after the whole thing with the grounder.

First of all, Octavia keeps hanging out in the dropship, like Bellamy is going to let her go up and see the thing. He doesn’t understand why it is so hard for her to understand that that fucking grounder is pretty fucking dangerous and pretty much almost kill Finn. There’s no way anyone can even try to put Finn’s near death experience on Bellamy. No way.

“You don’t get to see him, end of conversation”, he grumbles, using his best leader voice. The one that usually makes people do what he says, the one that is kind of scary. But Octavia is his own blood, and he’s quite sure she doesn’t give a shit about his leader voice.

Naturally, she brings back the conversation from earlier, the one where they accidentally on purpose probably scarred each other and their relationship for life. And as if that’s not enough, Princess decides to march in, probably just to ask him to talk to Jaha, again. Like please, give Bellamy a break here.

He wants to leave. He wants to run, run away from all of it. He’s so fucking tired of being responsible, of doing what he thinks is right and ending up realising it’s not. All he does is a mistake after another. He tried, tried his very best, and here they are, making more mistakes.

He wonders if Princess can see through him, if she can see all he’s keeping inside.

“Relax, that’s not why I’m here”, she says, and Bellamy snaps out of his head.

God, he’s so tired.

Maybe she’s not here because of Jaha, but she’s still here because of the Ark. The mission, however, has nothing to do with the Ark—it has everything to do with being good leaders, with keeping their camp alive. And to Bellamy, it sounds like a way out.

He could make it on his own. Especially if they find this place, find the supplies. Maybe he could live there, start a new life, run away from it all, from this. He frowns, mostly at his thoughts, but also at her.

“Why are you asking me?”

It’s a stupid question, he can think of a hundred and one reasons why Princess wants him to go with her. But still, it’s not like they enjoy each other’s company a whole lot, it’s not like she doesn’t have Finn— _oh_. Of course, Bellamy is the second on her list. _Nice_.

He’s not bitter, except maybe he’s a little bit bitter.

“Well, because right now I don’t feel like being around anyone I actually like”, she replies, and it sounds so sincere he can’t help but chuckle and agree to go. Not that he hadn’t decided to agree the moment she had asked him—it’s his way out, after all.

He looks at Octavia, and he knows he’s doing the right thing.

In the forest, when Princess is eyeing him kind of suspiciously every once in a while, he realises he could’ve done his preparation packing a little more carefully. She’s a smart girl, and maybe he’s counting on her to figure it out. Just so he wouldn’t have to say it out loud.

“Pretty sure you can’t avoid Jaha forever”, she tells him, and he’s pretty sure she has figured it out.

“I can try”, he says, and try his very best he will. Even if him trying usually goes to shit.

The conversation dies as quickly as it had started when they discover the remains of… something. Bellamy’s eyes are scanning the area, trying to find a hatch or something. And just like that, Princess changes the subject back to Jaha. Or him shooting Jaha, to be exact.

And he’s so done with it—a better half of him wishing he could just undo it, just so everybody would leave him alone—he decides to split up to get away from her. He doesn’t think she gets it, and he’s probably right.

She finds the way in far too quickly, and the place is fucking disgusting, completely worthless mess full of shit. He’s fucking tired and frustrated and annoyed and angry and—

Well, maybe the sun does shine on their shit parade every once in a while, too.

“Ready to be a badass, Clarke?”

His words have very little meaning behind them: he knows Princess is a badass already, maybe even the baddest ass—like, as in the most badass, not the one who has the worst arse, no—of them all. But he doubts a Phoenix girl can shoot a gun, not like a Walden boy can.

It’s kind of adorable, the way she’s trying to act like she’s done it before, holding the gun how idiots who are holding a gun for the first time hold a gun. He wants to chuckle, maybe even laugh, but then again, she is holding a gun. So he simply helps her, guiding her into the right position.

And God, she smells good.

Bellamy frowns, shaking his lingering hands off, taking a gun too. _Maybe don’t touch her again_ , he decides, brows still furrowed. He feels strange, but he shakes it off—shakes his head, loads his gun, takes the position, aims and… nothing.

Good thing Princess doesn’t need to watch to learn.

She shoots, slightly missing the target, but the way she sounds, smiles afterwards when she’s looking at him—it twists something in Bellamy’s gut. He can feel something starting in his stomach—a thrill—and then arcing up through his lungs, flashing into a spontaneous smile. And he’s snapping out of it within a second, wondering if Princess had caught it. Of course she had, the way she turns around, slightly flustered and laughing, tells it all.

 _Ecstatic shock_ , he thinks. _Noun. The surge of energy upon catching a glance from someone you like._ _The thrill I just felt._ He blinks, staring after Princess, because no way. No way he likes Clarke. He pretty much hates her, and it’s not the kind of hate that will go away after series of unfortunate misadventures where they grow to love each other and yada yada. He just…needs to protect her so the leadership they have won’t get ruined. He can still hate her, and he very much does.

Or fuck, he doesn’t have to do anything with Princess. He’s supposed to leave, he’s—he’s leaving. He curses his head for forgetting, for getting lost in—fuck, he doesn’t even know, in Clarke?

He doesn’t even know why he’s explaining himself to fucking Princess out of all people, and Jesus fucking Christ, he really needs fresh air.

_I need you._

Bellamy really shouldn’t be surprised to find himself next to Clarke after it all. He really shouldn’t, because of course it’s Clarke—his rock. As ridiculous as it sounds, the little whiny blonde he had hated since the day one, is what keeps him together, _who_ keeps him together. He feels so fucking stupid for not realising it earlier.

And Clarke really should feel even more stupid for needing him. Like Bellamy is ever going to do any good to her. But he’s selfish, so he doesn’t mention it. He lets Clarke think she needs him—it’s not like she does, she can’t possibly need someone like Bellamy. He lets her think anything she wants if that means he can keep her around.

When they later get back to his tent—to discuss camp business and such—everything blows up. It’s not like they’re yelling at each other, but they’re pretty much whisper-shouting at each other. They’ve had worse fights—fights where he’s been grabbing her arm hard enough to leave bruises and fights where she’s been shoving him to the ground—and they’ve been worse to each other—fights where he’s left her in tears and fights where she’s awoken his monsters—so Bellamy knows this can’t be even considered a real fight. This is just something they need to get it out of their systems.

It’s what they do: after all, they can’t—won’t—stop fighting.

And when she’s done with her latest rant, finally standing still just a few inches away from Bellamy, she’s panting and her hands are clenching into fists, chest rising up and down. They stare at each other for a moment or two until her mouth curves into this wicked smirk.

“Clarke”, he growls, and there’s a warning in the way he says her name.

“I need this”, she snaps back, pushing his jacket off his shoulders. It’s all very fast and heated, the way they get rid of their jackets and his shirt, and it doesn’t slow down until she kisses him and he wraps his arms around her, bringing her as close to him as possible. They stop completely, savouring the moment.

She’s studying his eyes the second they break the kiss, and he’s not sure what she’s looking for until she opens her mouth.

“Just don’t go falling in love with me, yeah?” she says as she’s unbuttoning his jeans, and he can’t help but run his hands over his face with an amused chuckle, “wouldn’t dream of it, babe.” She grins—it’s this completely shameless, shit-eating grin Bellamy didn’t even know she could do—before kissing him again.

And of course, they start fighting before he can even get her out of her bra, and he’s not sure whether it’s just normal Bellamy and Clarke or something that gets her truly going, a kink maybe. Anyway, he’s pretty sure his back is bleeding, and he’s not having any of that shit. He ends up pinning her wrists above her head—“Stop fucking scratching me”, he growls when she calls him an asshole—and very deliberately not fucking her, just hovering over her as she’s moving beneath him, trying to grind against his thigh, cock, anything. And when he’s not moving, simply holding her hips down with one hand, they just stare, eye to eye, until she shoves him away and he falls next to her, laughing because he’s won, because she’s given up.

But she’s not leaving, and he’s wondering if he’s made yet another wrong decision.

Then, out of nowhere, she grabs his arm and pulls it around her middle before he can yank it away, and suddenly they’re fucking spooning—“it’s going to be a cold night, combined body heat helps a lot”, she says and he calls bullshit, telling her it’s okay to acknowledge that he’s hot, and then she elbows him in the gut. And in the morning, when she’s not where she fell asleep, he feels this certain thrill.

It’s another thrill—to realise he doesn’t want to lose her when she’s not even his to lose—and it is so much more than an ecstatic shock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok this fic is currently at 14,064 words but i have so much stuff in the middle unwritten that i won't throw new chapters out this quickly i'm just excited to finally vomit all these words out bye
> 
> love me at [elizatays.tumblr.com](http://elizatays.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

> **hanker sore (adj.)**

So maybe Bellamy made a mistake when he let himself realise how much Clarke actually means to him. And maybe the whole thing where he almost fucked Clarke—he doesn't mention it, she doesn't mention it—in the dark that one night didn’t really help either. It’s gotten to a whole new level, and he can’t believe how blind he has been.

Like this one day, Miller got pretty much stabbed by a branch. It had sunk so deep into his side that Bellamy refused to touch it, simply carried Miller to Clarke and told her to fix it. He watched her work, her delicate fingers dancing around the wound like they knew exactly what to do. It was fascinating, so fascinating until she changed her position, and the way she leaned over Miller gave Bellamy a full show. And he knew, he fucking knew he wasn’t supposed to stare, but he couldn’t help it.

Clarke was pretty—she still is, she has always been—and his eyes merely followed the dried up trace of blood from her jaw all the way to her chest, admired the way it disappeared into her cleavage. He was curious to see where it ended, and maybe he was staring at her boobs far too long, because when she snapped his name, he god damn nearly fell off his chair. Mumbling flustered excuses for leaving, he rushed himself out of the dropship even though she was calling after him.

He had been so damn embarrassed he had communicated the rest of the day by insulting and snapping at everyone who had even tried to talk to him.

And then there was another time, but it was just him with her. They were having problems with grounders, and it had gotten to the point where they wanted to make sure the camp was actually safe, grounderproof. That, of course, meant lots and lots of planning, and that again meant late nights doing leader-y shit, just the two of them. And then, one night, the candle light hit Clarke’s eyes just from the right angle, and Bellamy still can’t think anything prettier than her eyes. And apparently he couldn’t fucking control himself—Clarke had to smack the side of his head to get him focus on the plan again.

 _What the fuck, dude, it’s just a pair of eyes, Bellamy, for fuck’s sake_ , he had told himself later that night, as he had been lying awake, thinking about a certain pair of blue eyes and grumbling quietly.

Oh, and then there was this other day when they were hunting. It was just Bellamy, Milldf, Finn and Clarke, and it was totally cool and casual. They hardly even fought with Finn! It could’ve been because a) they were all pretty quiet since they were hunting or b) Clarke was wearing the jeans—well, yeah, it’s not like she has any other fucking jeans—that hugged her body from all the right places and of course she was walking in front of Bellamy.

Finn had been laughing way too hard when he tripped and nearly planted his face on her arse. _Eyes on the road_ , Miller had chuckled, and Bellamy had made the rest of the hunting trip a complete hell for him.

So, yeah, maybe Bellamy thinks Clarke is extremely attractive. She has always been attractive to him—he can remember their very first day on Earth, when he had called her a pretty princess and everything. Back then, he had thought it was just the long, light locks of hair—Walden girls he had hooked up with had hardly ever had light hair—but apparently not.

It’s not the _Clarke is attractive_ realisation that’s bothering Bellamy, not at all. It’s the _Bellamy can’t seem to do anything around Clarke anymore because Clarke is attractive_ thing that seems to be going on. He’s thinking about it—he’s not sure if he thinks anything but Clarke anymore—and it’s seriously fucking him up.

 _Clarke, Clarke, Clarke_.

It’s like a little scratch on the roof of his mouth that would heal if only he could stop tonguing it. But it won’t because he can’t.

 _Clarke, Clarke, Clarke_.

He damn nearly punches Clarke when she taps on his shoulder.

“Jesus fucking Christ”, he mumbles, not believing he just got startled by Clarke because he was too deep in his thoughts about Clarke. Fucking Clarke honestly.

“Good morning to you too, sunshine”, she frowns, sitting down next to her. She has breakfast and a can of water for him, and he wonders if she’ll ever stop eating her breakfast with him. He doesn’t apologise, only takes what she’s offering and grumbles some more.

“I need you to come with me. I heard a wild rumour about a natural spring somewhere up in the mountains”, she starts, mouth full of berries.

 _Clarke, Clarke, Clarke_.

“A day trip?” he asks, and only stares at her blueberry-painted lips a little. She nods, stealing one of Bellamy’s peanuts. He doesn’t ask where she had heard about this natural spring or why she wants to risk their lives to go find a bloody spring—okay, maybe they could use clean, fresh water—or why she wants to spend a day up in the mountains with Bellamy.

He simply shrugs, “why the fuck not”, and she smiles like the bloody sun that isn’t even up yet.

They finish the rest of their breakfast in silence, and they leave before the sun has come completely up. It’s going to be a hot day, Bellamy can tell by the way morning sun is already glaring at them.

A nice afternoon swim in the natural spring sounds more and more tempting the further up in the mountains they get—he had been right, the weather is absolutely horrible for a hike, and he’s sweating his fucking balls off. Even Clarke has gotten rid of her jacket, wearing just her long-sleeve.

“If you want to get rid of that long-sleeve, you can just ask, you know”, he offers when she’s pushing the sleeves up for the hundredth time. He’s watched her struggle—and her arse, okay, he can admit that his eyes may have wandered—for the last hour, and her frustration over her reluctant sleeves is making him frustrated too.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks, not stopping to even look at him.

“That I can give you my t-shirt so you can stop fighting with your sleeves.”

“And what would you wear then, huh?”

“Nothing, obviously”, he scoffs, and smirks when she finally stops and turns to look at him.

“And then I’d have to treat your sunburned back for the next five days?” she scoffs back, putting a hand on her hip and raising an eyebrow, “thanks, but no thanks.”

The most annoying part is that she’s right, so he doesn’t take his shirt off, just silently glares at her butt for the rest of the trip. It’s so fucking hot out there, and he’s pretty sure they’ll both just die.

Maybe that’s why the spring—when they finally find it, hours later when it must be closer to the evening hours than the midday—looks absolutely irresistible.

Bellamy doesn’t waste anytime kicking his shoes and jeans off, throwing his backpack and shirt right next to them. The water feels cool against his skin, and he can’t think anything as satisfying as the moment he finally dives in.

“Come on, Princess”, he calls from the middle of the spring, looking at Clarke. She’s crouching on the edge of a stone, filling her water bottle. It only then strikes Bellamy—how pointless this trip has been. There’s no way they can make this spring their source of water. It’s too far away. Maybe Clarke miscalculated the distance, or maybe she—

Maybe she’s stripping off her clothes.

She is gorgeous—not that that’s anything new to him, but she is so god damn bloody gorgeous.

“Oh, wow”, he breathes out, and it wasn’t _meant_ to escape from his lips, but it did, and he’s just happy his mumbles are out of her earshot. He swallows—hard—and thinks he’s being absolutely pathetic. Of course she’d take her shoes off, her jeans off—who would go for a swim in their jeans? Clarke’s an old-fashioned Phoenix girl, that would probably be it and—

Or not.

Her shirt goes as well, and she’s not wearing the tank top he knows she has. All he should be thinking is _why she’s not wearing the tank top_ , but instead he’s thinking all sorts of other stuff. Well, it’s only fair, he supposes, since he’s wearing just his underwear too. Except it’s everything but fair, considering Clarke’s not drooling after his bare skin like a dog in front of a strip of bacon.

God, he’s being gross and disrespectful and Jesus, he’s almost ashamed of himself all the way to the moment where she closes her eyes and her lips part just enough to let a satisfied sigh out. Fuck, Bellamy is so fucking gone for this girl.

“Oh God.”

This time it’s Clarke who lets the words slip. She looks like getting into this spring is about the best thing ever happened to her—and let’s be real, after landing on Earth, it probably is—and she’s taking it all in with her eyes closed and everything.

And Bellamy is just staring like an idiot, studying her light skin like he’s mapping it for future exploring. It’s just that all of her is uncharted to him, and he’s so god damn fascinated and—

“Stop staring”, she groans before diving in.

He’s still staring when she surfaces—God, he needs to get his shit together, honestly—and she tries to drown him. Somehow he ends up carrying her out of the water on his back, her legs wrapped around his middle and arms around his neck. Even the contrast between their skins is driving him insane—he can’t even begin to understand how this girl manages to be all light, light, light, even when he’s all dark, dark, dark. But her skin is warm against his, and she’s laughing into the crook of his neck, so it’s not that bad. Maybe it’s a ying yang thing, or whatever.

 _Opposites attract_ , his mum had told him once after he had tried to woo a Phoenix girl. And Jesus if that isn’t the case here.

Bellamy counts the trip as an overall disaster, and when Clarke tells everyone about her miscalculations and how the spring ended up being a great but too far away to be useful, he can’t help but grumble quietly before excusing himself and heading to the woods.

He punches a tree, and as soon as its bark digs into his knuckles, he realises two things.

One, that punching a tree was a fucking mistake.

And two, _hanker sore_. It’s an adjective. It’s that feeling when someone is so attractive you actually get pissed off about it. And that’s what this is. Bellamy finds Clarke fucking Griffin so god damn attractive he’s angry about it.

When Clarke is fixing his hand, he tells her nothing and just sits there with a stern face. She tries her hardest to not laugh, but the smile playing tricks on her lips gives her away. And Bellamy can’t even be that pissed off anymore. But he can still grumble.

“What are you laughing about?”

“You. Who goes and punches a tree, huh? Who?”

“Apparently I do.”

“Yeah, you’re an idiot.”

“A hot idiot”, he challenges jokingly, raising his eyebrow as the corner of his mouth curves into a smirk. Clarke stops whatever she was doing to his hand and lifts her eyes on his, her eyebrow quirking up as if to ask _really?_ or something like that.

Bellamy hadn’t exactly expected her to lean back and rub her eyes, but that’s what she does.

“Look, Bellamy”, she starts, sounding absolutely strained. “I… Well, you know you—I mean we—Shit, just, it’s, like, I am not interested in you—like we’re co-leaders and such, it would be highly inappropriate—and I meant what I said the other night, it was just making out because who doesn’t need that, huh? But, I—I mean, my vagina thinks differently and it’s affecting my hormones and basically I need more than making out, and I’m sorry for it. My vagina, that is. And you go around punching trees and threatening Miller—your basically best friend—and Finn and, well, anyone, so you clearly need to sort out some… frustrations, and nobody really wants to screw around with you after the whole sex triangle or square or whatever incident, so all I’m saying is that we could do it.”

She finishes with a rather serious look that tells all about how fed up she is with her… problem. Bellamy’s not sure what she’s expecting him to say, so he’s just staring at her with this confused look on his face.

“What, you’re hot, you said it yourself”, she frowns like that justifies everything she just said. Now that he thinks about it, it really does justify all that, so his face lights up like the flares in the night sky.

“ _You_ want _me_ to fuck you?” he laughs, but that laughter dies when she nods, shrugging like it’s not a big deal. Or, yeah, it’s not a big deal, of course they can sort out some frustrations together every now and then, not a big deal. He doesn’t even realise he’s just sitting there, smiling at her like a kid who got his Christmas present early.

 _Clarke, Clarke, Clarke_.

“Are you following me at all here? Do you understand what I’m saying? Have you hit your head?” Clarke grabs his face, looking into his eyes with her brows furrowed, apparently thinking he has indeed hit his head. He flinches away from her touch, swatting her hands away too.

“Have _you_ hit your head? We hate each other, your idea is completely reckless and irrational, and fucking would be absolutely irresponsible considering we have a camp to run”, he frowns. He doesn’t even know who he is trying to convince here, but it sure as hell isn’t Clarke who is sitting back on her heels, looking innocent as Mother Theresa herself with her golden locks and blue eyes. She laughs, all vibrant and ridiculous because apparently Bellamy is ridiculous.

Bellamy wants to fuck her senseless.

“Fine”, she breaks the silence and gets up before he can say anything.

“Fine what?” he gets up too, spreading his arms because what the fuck just happened. What the fuck is happening. What the fuck. What.

“Fine, you don’t want to fuck me, sure, let’s not then, I’m sorry”, she rolls her eyes like she’s sick and tired of explaining everything to him. Which she probably is, but hey, it’s not Bellamy’s fault Princess just announced she wants his dick inside her. That’s kind of a lot to take in, and considering he’s been so _close_ to fucking her… It’s a lot.

“Princess, I—Princess! Clarke!” he calls after her—her name spilling from his lips almost furiously—but she’s gone, and looks like Bellamy’s not getting laid tonight either. His fist decides to go on a collision course with the nearest possible thing, which turns out to be the dropship wall, and God fucking hell, he is so angry.

He asks Octavia to bandage his broken knuckles, thinking he might just punch Clarke herself—or probably just fuck her senseless against a tree or something—in case he sees her anytime soon. He’s the very fucking definition of hanker sore, and it’s not even funny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "won't throw new chapters out this quickly" my ass


	6. Chapter 6

> **gnasche (n.)**

Days, weeks, even months go by surprisingly quickly when you have lots of shit to be worried about. The Grounders, the Mountain Men or whatever, the Reapers, some other –ers and to be honest, Bellamy can’t even keep up with all the people—yes, they all seem to be fucking _humans_ just like them, actual people—who hate their guts.

And Bellamy and Clarke, as leaders, are having all the stress, and they have no one to take it out but each other. Clarke has this bullshit idea that they need to seem like an solid, united front instead of two people with different point of views, arguing where anyone could hear and see them—just like they used back in the good old days.

So they have this fallout in their already strange relationship. They do nothing but fight, then sulk—“I’m just being soulful, Jesus fuck”, Bellamy snaps at Raven when she tells him he’s sulking and that he should just go and hold Princess’ hand of something—in silence, still standing side by side or following each other around like fucking puppies. It’s ridiculous, and neither one of them wants to admit it.

How they manage to run a successful camp behaving like this, Bellamy doesn’t know. But somehow it’s all working out, and he’s just a little bit angry over how hot she is. And he thinks he’s slowly starting to understand what Clarke had meant about her vagina thinking differently. Because his dick is totally kind of doing the same thing, and he has very little control over it.

Anyway, they don’t talk about _it_.

Maybe they both finally decided it would be stupid, dangerous even, and they really shouldn’t.

So on the Unity Day—after he and Clarke tell each other to _have fun and enjoy the Unity Day_ with the bitterest of tones, accompanied by a nasty glare—he fucks Venia, this complete mess of a girl with untameable red hair and dark eyes.

 _Clarke, Clarke, Clarke_.

She’s wonderful, he’s making her feel wonderful, and he has to cover her mouth with his hand, hushing her. She holds on to his arm, and he feels her laughing, so he laughs too.

 _Clarke, Clarke, Clarke_.

It feels like freedom, and Bellamy loves nothing more but freedom.

And maybe Clarke had been right about those frustrations that he needed to work out. He chuckles, feeling more content than he has in weeks, and he’s just about to say something to Venia when Princess marches in.

She stops dead in her tracks, takes a few second to really understand what’s going on in front her eyes, and sighs—Bellamy’s stomach drops a little.

“Briefing in five, it’s urgent”, she says, eyes not leaving Bellamy’s. She doesn’t give any sort of stink eye to Venia, simply nods at her to acknowledge her presence. Then she’s starting to leave, and Bellamy’s rushing up the moment she turns on her heels.

“Princess, hold on”, he calls, buttoning his jeans and grabbing his shirt, “what’s up?”

She’s not speaking until they find a quiet place behind the dropship.

“Your hair is a mess.”

“That’s what’s urgent? Well, newsflash, I just fucked a girl, the hair happens.”

Clarke doesn’t look too impressed, raising her eyebrow and letting an oddly judging _uh-huh_ sound fall from her mouth.

“Are you jealous?”

He _had_ to ask. He’s smirking, and maybe his smirk a little bit suggestive, too. Look, he can totally understand why Clarke would be jealous. He zips his jeans, and Clarke’s gaze falls to follow the sound. It snaps back up rather quickly, and she squints at him like he’s acting like a fucking child again.

“No, I don’t have time for your bullshit. We set up a meeting with the grounder boss”, she says, voice careful and serious. Bellamy frowns, a confused _sorry?_ escaping his lips, because did he mishear her? Has she actually set up a meeting with the grounders?

“I’m going to meet their leader.”

“Are you fucking stupid?” Bellamy asks, using his most polite voice, and stares at her, because this isn’t something Clarke would do. She just glares back, rolling her eyes and already trying to flee the conversation. He grabs her arm to stop her, giving her a hard look.

“It was Finn”, she finally blurts out with a sigh, “Finn set up the meeting”, and he lets go. He’s thinking— _maybe I should go too, I am the co-leader of this hellhole after all_ —and she’s waiting, impatient, arms crossed and foot tapping the ground.

“Well, shit.”

“Yeah, shit, Bellamy.”

And as usual, Clarke being the smart, calculating one, she completely shits on Bellamy’s war plan to tag along and shoot the grounder leader. Instead, she leaves with Finn and Octavia—Bellamy’s still not talking to her, he just grumbles like always—and he’s following them with Jasper and Raven. It doesn’t actually seem like the worst of plans, he has to give some kudos to Finn for coming up with it.

He doesn’t know whose arse he wants to kick more—Octavia’s for getting cutesy with a grounder, that said grounder for holding his little sister like that, or Finn holding his Princess’ hand like a proper loverboy.

“Grounder princess looks pissed.”

Raven’s words force Bellamy to focus on something else rather than who he’s most angry with. He cracks his neck—quickly, and with a sneering laugh, like he always does when he’s frustrated, angry—and smirks.

“My Princess has that effect”, he blurts, and Raven side-eyes him enough to make him scowl. And he’d scowl some more and probably elbow her in the gut, too, but Jasper’s calling out grounders in the trees and Bellamy can’t see shit.

It all happens very fast, and it’s all fucking downhill from the moment Jasper opens fire. Bullets start flying, arrows start flying, and Bellamy’s trying his best to bark orders, to get Raven and Jasper duck and shoot, to get Clarke, Finn and Octavia out from the open. And then, this weird slow motion kind of a thing happens, and he can see them taking Clarke. She’s fighting them—kicking and biting, screaming at them—but they’re taking her.

He takes a moment, calling out to Finn— _Clarke! Get her! Finn!_ —before sprinting towards the bridge, just a moment too late. They take Clarke, and they take Finn, and Bellamy has nothing but an empty bridge in front of him as the grounders rush away on their horses.

She looks at him, at Bellamy, one last time and he feels like he always does when he looks into her eyes—like they’ll make it anyway, they’ll get away from here one day. It’s almost comforting, until another feeling kicks in. And that’s the realisation that he might not see those eyes ever again.

And suddenly, there’s a knot in his throat and an arrow in his thigh. Jesus fucking Christ, he’s trying to have a moment and somebody’s fucking shooting him. He tries to look at Clarke, one last time, before Octavia comes to help him up, but she's gone.

They drag themselves back to the camp—Jasper barely there after getting an arrow in his arm and falling down on the rocks, being half-carried by Raven and Octavia, and Bellamy trying his best to walk with the agonising pain. It’s surprisingly easy to ignore because he’s so fucking angry about everything.

He’s angry because Clarke’s gone, because Finn’s gone, because he has an arrow sticking out of his thigh, because Raven’s yelling at him, because Jasper’s slipping in and out of consciousness, because Octavia has no idea what she’s doing and she’s probably dating a grounder dude, because Miller’s treating him like he’s a fucking baby, and the list goes on and on and on.

“Finn and Clarke are out there, we need to go get them!” Raven is indeed practically yelling at him, and he’s just spreading his arms and gesturing towards his leg. There’s still an arrow sticking out of his thigh, and Octavia’s trying really hard to remember everything Clarke had taught her.

“Can’t you just pull it out?” he asks, for Raven, because she’s pacing and fussing and making everyone in the dropship frustrated.

“No, no. Calm down”, Octavia tries, sounding a little desperate which has Bellamy worrying. He knows there’s some major arteries business going on inside the thigh, and he’d rather not bleed to death. God, he wishes Clarke was here. She would know what to do. She would.

“I need Clarke”, she finally says.

 _Clarke, Clarke, Clarke_.

“Don’t we all”, Raven mumbles, and Bellamy wonders if she’s still jealous or whatever about the whole Finn thing. A quiet _yeah, no shit_ slips from his lips, a louder _fucking hell_ following as Octavia pulls the arrow out. All three of them look at the wound, staring at it, expecting it to erupt like a fucking volcano.

But it doesn’t, and Octavia sighs with relief. Bellamy’s head snaps up immediately.

“You weren’t sure??” he roars, his heartbeat quickening as he truly understands what just happened.

“I was, like, half sure”, his sister shrugs and pours moonshine all over his thigh, making him hiss. Raven pats her on the shoulder— _well done, O_ —and points a finger at Bellamy, “as soon as you can walk, we’re going to get them.”

“Yes, ma’am”, he rolls his eyes and tries to wave Raven away. She grins and turns around, yelling orders to Drew and Jones on her way. Bellamy’s lips curve into a small smile, somehow proud of her taking the reins when there’s no one else. It’s almost stupid how fond of her he is nowadays, anyway. They’ve come a long way from _the angry space mechanic chick_ and _the universum’s biggest asshole_. Like shit, he wants to punch Finn because of what he did to Raven instead of just wanting to punch Finn because of what he did to Clarke.

 _Clarke, Clarke, Clarke_.

Or maybe he just really wants to punch Finn in general.

“How’s Jasper?” he asks Octavia when she’s done with bandaging his thigh. She raises an eyebrow, glances at Jasper and back at Bellamy.

“I don’t know.”

Bellamy sighs, disappointed—not because Octavia’s never studied any medical crap, but because he cares. He cares about Jasper, the idiot with the stupid goggles and ridiculous face, the idiot who calls him Dad and Clarke Mom. He looks at the boy—the pale, pale boy, sweating and bleeding in his coma-like state—and wonders if he’ll come back to them this time.

He does, in the middle of the night, when Bellamy’s still awake.

“Hey, Jasper?” he calls, voice rough. Jasper doesn’t say anything, but there are some shuffling sounds and little movement so he’s probably listening. Bellamy clears his throat before continuing, “don’t go dying on me, okay? I need you. We’ll go get Clarke and Finn. I need you, buddy, you better not give up.”

So maybe it’s dark and maybe Jasper is on the other side of the tent, but Bellamy swears he sees the other boy nod and grin like the idiot he is. And the weak _‘promise, Dad_ coming from the other side makes him grin too.

No one’s surprised when Bellamy can’t walk the next day. Or the following day.

“Bell, we need to get them”, Raven tries to reason with him on evening of the third day of not walking. He’s sulking around the campfire with Miller, roasting some rabbit for late night snack. He raises his gaze on Raven, pulling his rabbit from the fire and studying it before sticking it in front of Miller’s face for opinion. He studies the piece of meat for a second, too, then shakes his head, so Bellamy hovers it over the fire again.

“Bell.”

“I fucking know, okay? It’s not like I can do shit”, he snaps, shivering in the cold evening air. The winter’s slowly coming, and it’s scaring the living shit out of him. He has no idea how they’ll survive through the winter or why the Ark couldn’t have dropped them in, like, Southern America or Australia or something.

“We’re sitting ducks here. They could be dying”, Raven reminds him—he thinks she’s not using the term _sitting ducks_ properly—and then adds, as an afterthought, “or dead.”

 _Clarke, Clarke, Clarke_.

Like Bellamy doesn’t know.

Next morning, neither Raven nor Octavia is anywhere to be found. And Bellamy’s going fucking insane, because he can’t have two of his favourites just running around in the grounder-infested woods looking for their people who are possibly kept in the camp like hostages.

Or six feet under. Like dead.

So he limps around the camp, gathering all of his people, and he yells. He yells until his voice is hoarse, yells until the kids flinch back when he’s walking by them, yells until Miller gives him a weird look and slowly nods towards the rest of the kids.

_Kids. Right. They are just kids._

“No one, fucking no one leaves the camp like that. Alright? You’re not smart, you’re not brave or whatever the fuck you think you are”, his voice roars through the quiet camp like thunder until it dies down for a defeated sigh, “we’ve lost people because we’ve tried to be smart, tried to be brave, courageous, adventurous, whatever the hell you want to be.”

_Pascal, Atom, Wells, Charlotte, John, Diggs, Roma, Derek. Jasper. Finn, Raven, Octavia, Clarke._

_Clarke, Clarke, Clarke._

“Bell”, Miller calls, nodding towards a quiet spot next to the campfire, and Bellamy dismisses the rest of the kids with a glare and a wave of a hand. He only listens to Nathan because the lad is, like, his right hand, his lieutenant, his best friend, his brother. And maybe because he’s pretty smart too. For a teenager.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Miller hisses and—Bellamy swears to God, he can see it in the other boy’s eyes—clearly thinks about kicking him in the shin. He just grumbles and wraps his blanket tighter around himself.

“I don’t want them running around in the woods thinking they’re heroes. They’re delinquents. We’re delinquents. We’re not heroes.”

And with that, he turns around and disappears. It’s late anyway, no one needs him. So he walks to the wall and he waits. He waits, and waits, and waits.

Bellamy’s worried to the point where he wants to do exactly what he just told everyone not to do. He scoffs, because _do as I say, not as I do_ , or whatever that annoyingly smart saying was. But he’s worried, he’s frightened, he's injured, he’s tired—he just doesn’t want to dig anymore graves.

 _89, 89, 89_ , he thinks.

Clarke and Finn have been gone for three and a half days, Octavia and Raven for a day, and Jasper’s showing no signs of getting better.

 _85, 85, 85_ , he thinks.

_Clarke, Clarke, Clarke._

He must’ve fallen asleep at some point, because now he’s waking up to the sounds of people— _is that Finn’s voice?—_ and steps and grunts, and shit, he can’t quite believe his eyes. It is Finn indeed, and under his arm is Raven.

Bellamy drops down from the top of the wall, his damaged leg reminding him about the arrow with a lovely slash of pain, and limps towards the two. His eyes must be asking the question since Raven simply nods back and passes him, dragging Finn to the camp.

He squints his eyes in the dim morning light, and he sees Octavia.

“Jesus fucking Christ”, he whispers in relief as she melts into his arms, “you’re an idiot.”

“But I got her back”, she simply chuckles and leans back, looking at Clarke.

She looks like she’s been through hell.

“Well, Lincoln and Raven and me did”, Octavia continues, but Bellamy can’t really focus on her right now. His eyes won’t leave Clarke, his worn-out, bloody and battered Princess. He’s used to seeing her all covered in blood—in his blood, in the delinquents’ blood—but never in her own. He takes a careful step forward, swallowing the _thank fucking God_ before it can slip.

“Stop staring at me like that, I’m okay”, she frowns, walking past Bellamy like he’s being a total weirdo. And she’s walking with the speed of light, and he can only furiously limp after her, telling her to wait.

She spins around and her annoyed expression softens the moment she realises there’s something wrong with _him_. She turns, takes a step backward to reach him, and places a comforting hand on Bellamy’s arm like he’s the one who needs it. He shakes it off with a frown and tries to limp away, but Clarke’s grabbing his arm and dragging him into the dropship, making him sit down and not listening to his protests at all.

“You wait there”, she orders, pointing a finger at him before moving to Jasper. He watches her clean his wounds, and when Octavia brings her a steaming can of something, she makes him drink it, mumbling soothing words into his ears.

Bellamy thinks she’s about the best thing he’s seen on Earth, and that’s a lot.

When Jasper falls asleep—he hasn’t fallen asleep before, he’s just slipped out of consciousness without a warning—Clarke dismisses Octavia and walks over to Bellamy, dropping on her knees.

“Jesus”, she mumbles as she opens his bandage, studying the wound for a moment before sitting back on her heels and lifting her eyes on his, “jeans off.”

Bellamy blinks once, twice, and she washes her hands with moonshine.

“Are you deaf? Jeans off. Now. _Please._ ”

He does as he’s told, and her hands are on his thigh before he can even sit his ass down again. Her pale fingers dance on his tanned skin like they have it all charted and mapped, and there’s this strange spark in her eyes. It’s all very enchanting until those fucking fingers are in his fucking thigh, and then it’s just all agony.

“Octavia’s too careless”, she sighs as she investigates the bloody arrowhead she just pulled out. Bellamy’s too busy panting and hissing and holding his thigh to be intrigued by the thing.

“And you’re fucking crazy”, he hisses, and great, the wound is bleeding again.

“Shut up”, she smirks, starting to bandage his thigh again.

He’s still a little pissed off when she pats his leg— _all done_ —and gets up like she didn’t just make him go through hell.

“I’m glad you’re back”, he says anyway, focusing strictly on pulling his jeans back up in case he’s getting flustered or something. Not that he would ever get flustered because of Clarke, but still. Just in case. She stops dead on her tracks, and she smiles, lighting up like the Unity Day campfire.

Bellamy wants to fuck her senseless.

And hold her hand the next morning, and that’s the part that scares him.

“Come on, then”, she offers, and he slips his arm around her shoulder, telling her how much of an idiot she was agreeing to meet this Anya and shit. She elbows his side accidentally on purpose and tells her all about the grounder camp and this young warrior girl Tris and how she had to kill a man, and before they know it, it’s dark again.

There’s a beat of silence before they both speak up.

It’s a shame that Clarke’s going with _I should go_ and Bellamy with _stay_. He can see the hesitation in her eyes, and he’s not missing the way she’s shuffling uncomfortably either. She doesn’t want to stay, and it gives him this horrible gut-wrenching feeling he absolutely loathes himself for.

“Just in case your wound starts bleeding again”, she finally whispers.

“Just in case”, he agrees.

“And it’s freezing, combined body heat is warmer than any fur or blanket”, she continues.

“Indeed”, he confirms with a nod, throwing himself down on his mess of furs and blankets.

Then Clarke accidentally knees him straight into his fucking dick as she climbs over him to settle next to him, and he can’t help but hiss in agony, groaning something about never being able to have kids. He still wraps his arm around her, and she still takes his hand in her own.

“You are such a baby, do you want me to kiss your boo-boo or something?”

Bellamy allows the awkward silence come, and he doesn’t open his mouth until he thinks he sees the first traces of a blush on her cheek. Maybe the _actually, yes, I do_ he whispers into her ear with hot breath isn’t exactly helping, he figures that out as soon as she pushes his hand away and turns to face him with a very, very stern look. She looks at him like he’s a god damn child—he is—until giving up and shoving his face away with her hand. He laughs, and pushes her hand away as he turns on his back, looking at her.

She looks peaceful, with her hand beneath her cheek and eyes closed. There’s some dirt on her forehead, traces of blood on her cheek, bruises around her throat, and she’s even paler than she usually is, but she looks peaceful. And Bellamy feels like this is it, this is all he needs.

“I’m kidding”, he whispers, and she simply huffs.

“No, you’re not”, she states a moment later, still not opening her eyes.

Bellamy doesn’t say anything, just cracks one eye open to see the light, slightly smug smirk lingering on her lips. He shuffles, facing her, fingers tracing random patterns on her forearm. Fuck, he wants her, wants to taste her, he wants to mark her light skin, he wants to leave loving bruises, lustful fingertips, possessive bitemarks—

 _Gnasche_ —one of the stupidest, most pointless words he ever taught to himself—jumps into his mind _, the intense desire to bite into the forearm of someone you love_. He flinches like her skin is suddenly burning, and falls on his back again, swallowing hard. Her hand wanders on his chest as she shifts closer to his body, her fingers tracking his collarbone from one end to the other until she falls asleep.

He doesn’t love Clarke fucking Griffin, he decides as he falls asleep with his hand covering hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i look like a mixture of the monkey covering its eyes emoji and the blushed really happy and content smiley face emoji and that's all because of your comments i just w OW thank you so so so so much :'')))


	7. Chapter 7

> **scabulous (adj.)**

Weeks continue to go by, and they go by so quickly Bellamy pretty much stops keeping count. After one hundred and fourty-eight days, he stops keeping count.

The whole camp has fallen into this routine—this is their life now, this is their home, this is their everyday. They have their cooks, they have their hunters, they have their guards, and they’re even building these huts from branches and animal skins and furs, talking about how they’ll try to build actual houses when it gets warm again.

And Bellamy and Clarke prance around the camp, keeping everything in order, following each other like their lives depend on it. And maybe that’s—almost losing Clarke—what it took to make Bellamy keep her close—close, as in deciding to move together in his tent. Raven actually helps her with the move—she’s getting her old tent—and scoffs something like _you’re like an old married couple_ when the two get into a fight about whether they should fix his bed or not.

It’s platonic, really—she never mentions his dick against her arse in the mornings, and he never tells her how incredibly fucking mean it is to rub the said arse against the said dick in the mornings. So yeah, they’re good, they’re platonic, they’re done with the tension.

_Combined body heat._

Or that’s what Bellamy tries really hard to make himself think.

Miller suggests he should talk about it with her—and it’s not like Bellamy has told Miller jack’s shit about this whole thing with Clarke, but Miller is his best friend and Miller knows him too well. Miller also knows it’s Bellamy, and that if it’s up to him, he’ll rather just sit on it until all hell breaks loose.

All hell starts breaking loose on one particularly cold morning, when he can see his breath and everything is covered in frost. He’s tired, and it’s harder than usual to unwrap himself around Clarke’s warmth. But he does it anyway, wrapping himself with a blanket instead, and wanders outside.

The camp is quiet, and the campfire is still smoking—a telltale that it didn’t die until mere moments ago. It’s actually oddly quiet, Bellamy realises, and squints even harder. His hair is trying to grow in all directions at once, his face is set in a deep frown, and the blanket has fallen from his shoulder—everything in his essence screams _I just woke up and I didn’t really want to_.

It’s so quiet.

Bellamy must stand there for a good minute or two before realising something is wrong. Slowly, almost comically slowly, he turns to look at the gate—the gate that’s wide open when it shouldn’t be, the gate that has no guards whatsoever around it.

And because he’s Bellamy, he tilts his head in confusion, and he takes a step, and another, and another. He’s curious, he doesn’t know where Jaxon, Reed and Jones—the team that was supposed to have the night watch—are, he doesn’t know why the gates are open. So he wanders all the way to the gate, and he should be suspicious, but he’s not awake enough to be alarmed.

He’s not awake enough to fight back when he gets jumped on by two grounders, one of them knocking him out.

“I thought you were supposed to be preparing for the winter”, he snaps bitterly when he regains consciousness and recognises Anya, and swallows what he was about to spit out—Bellamy Blake might be a lot of things, but disrespectful is not one of them.

Anya utters a laugh, “oh, but we are.”

Bellamy’s not quite following, but he doesn’t let it show. Someone cuts the rope tying his wrists together, and he deliberately does not rub them—he’s not weak.

“See, Bellamy Blake, the thing is, our healer left”, she speaks slowly, as if testing the grounds, seeing if he catches the drift. And he does, muttering impressive chain of swearwords under his breath. If Lincoln left, where is Octavia?

“We know he’s been with one of yours. Octavia, isn’t it?”

Bellamy says nothing, biting back the anger. Anya doesn’t say anything either, keeping her dark eyes on his, so he has to swallow his pride and open his mouth.

“I guess we both have reckless kids to look after”, he waves his hand casually, “do you want to hold the wedding or should we, being the bride’s side?”

The other leader still doesn’t say anything, simply raises an eyebrow and takes a step forward, finally speaking, “funny.” She offers him a cup of something that reminds him of the teas Clarke makes ever so often. He takes it—everything but disrespectful—and gives it a smell, deciding it’s definitely not one of the teas Clarke makes ever so often.

“So”, Anya starts again, breaking the silence, and Bellamy takes a sip of the drink as she continues, “the problem is, we don’t have a healer. We need one. We want Clarke.”

Bellamy makes a weird choking sound, and damn nearly chokes on his tea, bursting into laughter. It doesn’t die down until Anya glares at him impressively enough to tell him she’s dead serious about wanting Clarke.

“No.”

“No?”

“It’s hardly our fault your healer—who is a grown man, might I add—keeps drooling after my sister—who is, by the way, seventeen years old”, Bellamy states, “is it now?”

Anya looks like she wants to throw something at him, but instead, she just turns around, fingers playing with one of the loose strings of her outfit. She’s clearly frustrated, annoyed that he has a point, and Bellamy’s proud all the way until she opens her mouth again.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-three”, he replies instantly, because he’s fucking stupid.

“Isn’t Clarke seventeen, too?”

Anya’s voice is careful, it’s calm and calculating like Clarke’s, and Bellamy’s lips press into a tight line. He doesn’t need a fucking grounder leader who sentenced Clarke to death mere weeks ago to poke him about the little thing called age difference. He knows it’s fucking wrong, and he’s doing a damn fine job keeping his cock out of Clarke.

His hands clench into fists.

_Clarke, Clarke, Clarke._

“She’s turning eighteen”, he manages with strained voice. It only strikes him after the words spill—he has no idea when Clarke’s birthday is. Well. Fuck.

Anya lets out this noise—it’s like half scoff and half laugh—and she knows she got under his skin. He cracks his neck, and he’s rather sure his nails are digging into his palms hard enough to leave marks. Anya circles around him like a wolf around its prey, and Bellamy wants to dash forward and make a run for it, like a stupid fucking deer the wolf will always catch.

“We’re willing to come halfway”, he breaks the silence, turning to Anya. She’s visibly confused—maybe it’s the _we_ Bellamy is talking about, or the whole idea in general—and maybe even curious, and her raised eyebrow is urging him to spit it out.

“We’ll find Lincoln”, he puts the offer on the table, and interrupts her before she can say anything, “we’ll _find_ him. Returning to you, that’s up to him. But you’re not getting Clarke. We need Clarke.” And yeah, it’s easier to stay with the _we_.

“We could just…take her”, Anya reminds, and something dangerous flashes in Bellamy’s eyes.

“Yeah, because asking would be incredibly rude”, he grumbles before he can stop himself, and he’s actually surprised how great of an idea simply asking would be. The winter is coming, they both have roofs over their heads, they both have it alright—why even fight?

“Just—stop kidnapping our people. If you need to talk about something, just come and fucking talk about it like a proper leader.”

And with that, Bellamy turns on his heels and marches out of Anya’s rather impressive house slash hut slash tent thingy. He marches all the way across the grounder camp, attracting curious eyes, and he marches all the way back to their own camp.

“Where’s Clarke?” is the first thing he roars when he slams the gates close after himself, only to open them again when Monroe informs him she went for a walk. Bellamy grabs a gun, wondering what part of _no one fucking leaves the camp alone_ people are not understanding, and tries to think of Clarke’s favourite spots.

He stops when he finds Clarke sitting on the edge of the cliff where Charlotte—Yeah. He still doesn’t want to think about it, to get over it, so he moves forward with his feet, careful not to startle her. Her feet are dangling over the edge, and she’s staring down into the running river below her feet.

And of course, Finn is there, sitting right next to her, their shoulders together.

“Bellamy”, Finn’s the first to react, “what are you doing here?”

“Fighting the urge to push you down”, Bellamy answers casually, “I’m here to talk to Princess.”

Finn looks at Clarke, clearly wanting some sort of confirmation that this—Bellamy wanting to talk to Clarke—is indeed okay with her, and she nods, she fucking nods, giving him a small smile as he gets up.

Bellamy doesn’t like it. Not one bit.

“Princess?”

Her nickname comes out as a question rather than a greeting. Yet she doesn’t answer it, doesn’t acknowledge him at all. She’s just staring, staring, staring. For a split second Bellamy wonders if she’s going to follow Charlotte, but he shakes the thought out of his head right away. She wouldn’t.

“You okay?” he asks, his stomach turning as he settles down next to her—on her other side, opposite where Finn had sat.

“Sure”, she says, all dull.

“Clarke.”

They fall into this comfortable silence, arms touching, thighs touching, and Bellamy really, really, really wants to kiss her. But a big part of him is afraid of falling into the running river down there, so he decides to just sit tight.

“I thought you left.”

Clarke breaks the silence, and Bellamy realises that’s what’s bugging her.

“I thought you left us.”

“I wouldn’t—“

“You would. You’ve thought about it, you almost did it.”

“That was months ago.”

“Still.”

“Trust me, I wouldn’t”, Bellamy promises quietly. Clarke looks up, up to the skies, and she utters out an incredulous laughter. Within seconds, her gaze snaps to him, “how am I supposed to trust you? How am I—“

“I think I love you”, Bellamy breathes out, interrupting her, and he feels like he’s been holding it in for too long, he feels relieved—like a stone rolls off his heart, like the weight of the world is lifted off his shoulders. He feels so much lighter, somehow happier.

And Bellamy’s not sure about Clarke’s relationship status at the moment, but Well is dead and Finn’s an asshole—and kind of with Raven again, Bellamy guesses—so, yeah, he thinks he might have a real shot here.

Still, there isn’t a smile on his lips as he’s lifting his careful eyes to Clarke’s. She seems to feel… nothing. She drops her gaze, wiping her hands on her jeans, and then she simply gets up. She even offers him a hand, helping him up too.

“Don’t.”

And for a moment, he gets a flashback of her right after Jasper had almost died, after Finn had almost died. He realises he’s looking into the same empty, hollow eyes he had looked into back then. But he shakes the thought out of his head, chuckling, because this has to be a joke. _Has to_. She even helped him up.

“Don’t what? Think? Love?” he asks, scoffing, still amused, because he’s thinking that this is just some stupid Clarke Griffin certified joke and that she’s going to whisper _think_ and kiss him or something. That’d be very Clarke Griffin thing to do, he figures.

“Don’t love me”, she says, instead, and looks Bellamy dead in the eye, “I told you not to fall in love with me.”

And with that, she’s gone.

Bellamy’s pretty sure he just got rejected, and it fucking stings like a knife in his gut. Which is pretty ironical, considering there is indeed a knife in his gut, and someone’s kicking the back of his knee, forcing him down and tearing his gun away from him.

“Pretty harsh, even from Princess.”

“Nice to see you again, Murphy”, Bellamy bites out as he recognises the voice, his hand pressing the wound around the knife, “great timing.”

“I know, so good to see you, too”, the other boy laughs out like they’re friends meeting after years and years of radio silence, “I was going to get Princess, really, but she was busy with Spacewalker. You’ll do.”

“What, you’re going to kill me?”

“Well, you were pretty into killing me, you know”, Murphy circles him, finally stopping in front of him, and Bellamy’s never felt more humiliated—down on all fours, one hand clutching his gut.

Oh, nevermind—Murphy aims a nice kick in his face and he falls on his back, pretty sure he has split his lip now, too. _Great. Fucking amazing_.

“We didn’t”, Bellamy states calmly, feeling the bones of his face as he glares at Murphy. Nothing seems to be broken, but his jaw definitely fucking hurts and his nose is bleeding like an erupting volcano. Murphy paces around, gently fiddling with another knife in his hands, and he laughs.

“ _We_ ”, he huffs, “it’s not we, Blake, it’s you.”

He kicks him again, his foot digging into Bellamy’s side this time, lodging the knife and tearing something apart inside him. He wants to pull it out, he really, really, really fucking wants to pull it out, but Clarke has taught him better.

_Clarke, Clarke, Clarke._

“What are you waiting for then?” he asks, spitting out blood and wondering how Murphy’s going to kill him—it’s not like he has limited options, quite the opposite. A wicked smirk appears on the other boy’s lips, and he shrugs. Bellamy sees black for a moment, wincing in pain. Great, he’s going to lose consciousness before Murphy gets to kill him, just great, what a day!

The next thing he wakes up, is Miller wrestling—wrestling! They have guns! What a fucking idiot!—with Murphy. On the cliff. Bellamy’s sort of disappointed, but more frustrated because apparently his kids are stupid as fuck and never listen to him. And he’s supposed to be the Dad. He grunts, looking for his gun.

Bellamy’s an alright shot, a great one on a good day, a decent one even on his worst days. But as he’s aiming the gun towards the two wrestling boys with his blurry vision accompanied by random stars and black spots, he’s doubting himself.

He counts to three, inhales, exhales, and he takes the shot.

“Bell?”

It’s Miller who calls for him when the gunshot stop echoing in the valley.

“Yeah?”

“There’s a dead body on the top of me”, he whines after a beat of silence, and Bellamy can’t help but break into laughter. The knife in his gut forces him to tone it down, and Miller’s quickly on his side as he winces in pain again.

“Let’s get you back to camp, yeah?”

“You know, Nathan”, Bellamy groans as Miller starts to help him up, the knife pressing deeper into his gut, “I really fucking hate you.”

It sounds like an _I love you_ and Miller simply snorts, “you too, Bell, you too.”

Clarke’s so fucking angry when they drag themselves back to camp. She’s yelling at them, yelling at Finn, yelling at Octavia—Bellamy’s not sure when Octavia had come back or if Lincoln is with her—and just yelling in general. She doesn’t calm down even when he slides into the darkness again, falling face first at her feet.

Bellamy’s woken up to a lot of things during his twenty-three years of life, but never to anything as lovely as Clarke straddling him, fingers dancing around the stitches in his abdomen, making their way up to his chest, and finally she leans down to kiss his collarbone.

“I told you not to”, she whispers, and her breath is hot against his neck, “I warned you, didn’t I?” And there’s something very wrong with the way her whispers make his cock twitch. He can feel himself getting angry—he’s so fucking easy when it comes to her; she just needs to breathe sweet nothings onto his skin and he’s all hers.

“Maybe we can’t help it”, she murmurs and presses a kiss, bites down right over his pulse point as he sits up—his hands move to grab her hips, and he grabs them hard enough to leave bruises. But it only makes her purr like a fucking cat, and Bellamy’s at a loss for words.

“Come on, Bell”, she kisses her way all the way up to his jaw, leaving a trace of lovebites behind, stopping just before his lips, “what, cat got your tongue?”

“Clarke.”

His voice is low, dark even, and it’s a warning. They’re playing a dangerous game, and she’s calling him _Bell_ , and God, he’s so gone for this blonde on his lap.

A small _mhm?_ escapes her lips as she grinds against his crotch, and fucking Christ on a stick, Bellamy can’t handle her at all.

“I’m warning you”, he states, his voice slow and steady. He’s shivering under her touch—her nails sneaking under his shirt, tracking his spine ever so lightly—and he’s sure she could make him undone right then and there. So he stills her hips with his hands, forcing out another strained warning, “Clarke.”

And he knows it has no effect whatsoever when she leans closer to his ear again, “I need you fuck me so I can’t walk straight tomorrow.”

“Clarke.”

“Bell, come on, you _love_ me”, she speaks softly, and he’s so blinded by anger and lust and everything. How dare she use that against him, after all they’ve been through, after all she knows about him, after all he’s done for her.

One slip of the words, one _I think_ , and it’s all tumbling down.

“Clarke”, he tries for the last time, nearly growling her name out. But she just smiles, peppering his skin with small kisses and sighs— _come on, Bell_ —and she’s panting and needy and Bellamy’s not sure why he’s even saying no. Or of course he knows. He just doesn’t want to get hurt, doesn’t want to lose his pride, doesn’t want to fuck the whole Bellamy and Clarke thing up.

But Clarke, she has different ideas as she tangles her fingers in his mess of hair, yanking him out of his thoughts. “Bellamy, you and me, we complete each other, we complete each other the nastiest, ugliest way possible”, and the way she’s purring on his lap, she sounds like anyone but Clarke.

“Shut up”, he says, because there isn’t much he can say.

And of course, she leans closer, whispering into his ear, “make me.”

He utters out a wicked laugh, because God, does he want to shut her up, does he want to make her not walk straight tomorrow, does he want to complete her the nastiest way possible.

Fuck it.

He kisses her, hands wandering all over her back, pulling her closer, chest to chest. He kisses her, their teeth clashing and lips bruising. He kisses her, with lust, with passion, with _love_. He kisses her, and he knows that that’s it, there’s no going back.

He kisses her, and—

“Jesus fucking Christ, there might be something wrong with that pain relieving thing we gave them! Miller just—”

He kisses her, and that’s the exact moment when Octavia decides to march in.

“They’re high. They’re high as fuck.”

Bellamy can hear a warning in his sister’s voice, and she’s frozen still, a cautious hand in mid-air like Bellamy has a lion on his lap and any quick movement might provoke it to attack. He’s not sure what to do, what to say— _it’s all her_ or _I’m not doing anything_ or _it’s not like I was about to go through with this_ or _I’m not that kind of a guy_ or, or, or—and Clarke, with her fingers still in his hair, looking at him all innocently while her hips work against his, isn’t really helping.

Bellamy’s just staring back, because fuck.

“Bell”, Octavia calls again.

“I’m not doing anything”, he says, voice calm and calculating as if he’s not _dying_ to kiss Clarke again. His eyes refuse to leave hers, and she quirks up an eyebrow, challenging him, her voice echoing in his head— _come on, Bell, focus on me, come on, please, come on, wake up_.

Then, suddenly, he wakes up with blood in his throat and Clarke’s hand on his cheek, and her eyes are everything but challenging—they’re worried, concerned, maybe even panicked, but somehow still calm, comforting. He can’t breathe, just cough his lungs out, and his hand automatically goes for her wrist, grabbing it like his life depends on it.

“He’s okay”, she states after he can breathe again, carefully studying his face.

“Welcome back, Bell, must’ve been a good high”, Octavia grins over Clarke’s shoulder, and Bellamy’s just trying to figure out what the fuck happened. His eyes move slowly from Octavia’s, and the slight smirk on Clarke’s face answers all of his questions.

“You had quite a fever. I tried some new herbs for pain, and apparently the side effect is… Well, a good high”, she smiles at Octavia, and nods at her, confirming that he is indeed okay. His sister leaves with a light _get better soon, brother_ , and he’s left in the dropship with Clarke and Miller.

She offers him some water, and lowers her voice just enough to make the conversation somewhat private, “fever might’ve given you nightmares, I mean, you kept saying my name.”

It’s not a question, it’s not a suggestion, it’s not a guess. It’s a solid statement, and Bellamy finds himself opening and closing his mouth like a fish on dry land, trying to come up with something to say. Miller kindly saves the day, snorting loudly from across the dropship.

“I bet it was everything but a bad dream”, he hums when they both look at him. Clarke turns back to Bellamy, eyebrows raised. He doesn’t say a thing, just glares at her with furrowed brows.

“I don’t even call you Clarke, Princess”, he grumbles when she gets up.

“In your wildest dreams you do”, she says over her shoulder as she’s walking away, voice oh so casual and careless. God.

“Pretty bold coming from a girl who said _don’t_ ”, he shoots back, but she just rolls her eyes and walks out of the dropship, and Bellamy swears he’s never seen as much swaying in her hips. As if the situation wasn’t unfair to being with, now she knows what she’s doing to him, and women with that kind of power can be lethal.

 _Well, crap_ , he thinks and glares Miller so hard the other boy rather limps out of the dropship than stays there with him.

Bellamy doesn’t meet Clarke again until the next morning. She’s giving Miller the green light, and the other boy leaves the dropship with a grin, muttering something about getting a good shot of moonshine into his body. Bellamy grins at him, tells him to bring him something too, before Clarke’s fingers on his skin become too much to focus on anything else.

The wound looks nice. Clarke even says it out loud, and gives him the green light as well.

Then they don’t talk for a week, and Clarke’s sleeping in Raven’s tent.

Bellamy really doesn’t want to push it. He’s the idiot here, he reckons. If Clarke wants to live with Raven, it’s okay, Bellamy will deal with it. If Clarke wants not to have anything to do with Bellamy, it’s okay, Bellamy will deal with it. It’s fucking shit, but he will deal with it.

And he’s been doing alright until one day, he and Miller are on watch, sitting on the wall and talking about the Walden girls back in the Ark. He doesn’t even think about Clarke—the _Clarke, Clarke, Clarke_ has turned into this white noise in the back of his head—until Miller slaps his arm and says her name. Bellamy gets up so fast he almost falls off the wall, Miller having to grab his arm to help him keep his balance.

He jumps down, walks to meet Clarke without saying a word.

“I need to see your wound”, she says like they have exchanged words during the last week, and Bellamy lifts up his shirt.

“It looks really nice”, she hums, gently tracing the edges of the wound, “I’m kind of proud.”

“Scabulous”, Bellamy blurts.

“What?” Clarke straightens her back, looking at him with slight confusion.

“Or, well, I suppose I would have to be proud of it. Or, you know, the scar needs to be your own. If you’re scabulous”, he rushes to explain, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Scabulous”, she repeats.

“Adjective. Proud of a scar on your body. An autograph signed to you by a world grateful for your continued willingness to play with her, even when you don’t feel like it”, he recites his little book word by word, looking over Clarke’s head.

“You never cease to surprise me, Blake”, she chuckles, gesturing them to move back to the wall.

“And yet you won’t let me love you”, he challenges, falling into step next to her. He’s come to terms with the fact that he does, indeed, love Clarke, and once he admitted it to himself, it’s been ridiculously easy to say out loud. Not like he goes around the camp telling everyone how much he loves the Griffin girl, but, like, it's easier to say it, to himself.

“When’s your birthday?” he asks when she doesn’t say anything, and she seems confused for a moment.

“December third?” she answers slowly, words coming out as if she’s not sure about her birthday either, “why?”

“No reason.”

And just like that, Bellamy’s keeping count on the days again. Twenty-eight days until December third.

“You’re really in love with me?” Clarke asks, and she catches him so off-guard he trips on a stone and just barely gets his balance back, a flustered _yeah_ escaping his lips. She stops dead on her tracks, giving him this desperate _please don't be_ look.

“Well, fuck me.”

She has her hand over her eyes, hair shadowing her face. She looks really desperate, like she has no idea what to do, and Bellamy’s pretty sure it’s not the fucking part she’s desperate about. Or hell, maybe it is, he can’t know.

“I can if you'd like”, he only half-jokes before taking a step towards her, “no but honestly, what’s so wrong with it? It’s not like I’m asking anything from you. It’s—I can get over it.”

“Fuck you, Bell”, she simply sighs, avoiding his eyes.

“You need to—“

“Bellamy.”

The warning look in her eyes is enough to shut him up, but definitely not enough to wipe the smirk off his face. He shrugs, again, this time all innocent like he’s not one to blame, and then takes the steps separating the two of them, placing a hand on her arm.

“Seriously, Clarke, are you okay?”

And Bellamy hates, hates, _hates_ how soft his voice is and how he leans down just so he can look her in the eye. He’s so in love with this girl.

“Yeah, I just”, she says, and he knows she has no intentions to finish her sentence. He drops his hand, shoving it in his pocket because it’s, like, fucking burning at the loss of contact. For the first time in forever, the silence between them is awkward, not comfortable at all, and Bellamy’s already tracing back his steps, about to leave, when she opens her mouth again.

“Are you sure?”

He’s not at all sure what she’s referring to, but he takes a chance, “yeah.”

He’s about to turn around, but changes his mind midway and stares into the forest, “yeah, I love you.” There’s very little confidence in his words, so he says it again, like it’s a fact, “I love you.” He steals one last glance of Clarke before leaving her.

Bellamy Blake loves Clarke Griffin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was almost pointless and not my best work plotwise but i do love writing bellamy/clarke in situations where the sexual tension can be cut with a knife and also bellamy/miller bfffs!! oh and yeah that lil important thing happened in the end


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so so so sorry

> **kairosclerosis (n.)**

To everyone’s surprise, Anya shows up at the camp one day. It had been awfully quiet after Bellamy had visited the grounder camp, and despite his efforts, he hadn’t managed to get a hold of Lincoln. Octavia, however, had claimed he doesn’t want to return, not when his life is in danger because he happens to love a girl from another tribe, and that she thought it was awfully romantic.

Miller orders Monroe and Jones hold their horses, and guides Anya and her company to Bellamy and Clarke’s tent—yes, it’s their tent again—and in the middle of an heated argument about whether she should go for a medical supply run on her own or not.

“Mom, Dad”, Miller calls under his breath like he’s embarrassed for them, franticly nodding towards Anya and her men. Both Bellamy and Clarke shut up, heads snapping to look at her. They share a quick look, and Bellamy grabs his gun while Clarke thanks Miller, inviting the grounders inside.

 _Civil, let’s be civil_ , Bellamy hopes when he spots the arrows and hatchets, clutching his gun that much tighter.

Clarke sits down on one of the containers around what they use as a table, and gestures Anya to do the same. Bellamy simply stands behind his co-leader, tilting his head as he gives a stern look to the other two men in the tent.

“So”, Anya starts, “I’m here with an offer.”

Approximately an hour later, all five of them step out of the tent and into the view of curious kids. Clarke shakes Anya’s hand, and Bellamy simply nods at her.

“We’ll see you in a fortnight”, she says as she swings herself up on her horse. And he knows she’s talking to Clarke, but he’s nodding again anyway. It was his idea—the whole _let’s not kidnap each other, let’s just talk and co-exist and work together_ thing, yeah, all Bellamy’s idea.

And Anya’s deal isn’t even bad, it’s actually amazing. Twice a month—and in case of an emergency—Clarke spends a few days in their camp, teaching Lincoln’s protégé what she knows, and in exchange, the 100 get supplies for the winter. It’s a pretty fucking amazing deal, even if Bellamy isn’t too happy to let Clarke go.

It’s only fair that he’s nervous when two grounders come for Clarke in the end of November. She gives him this sad smile— _I’ll be gone for a day or two, you can deal_ —as she hoists herself on a horse they brought for her. She looks like she’s spent her whole life horseback riding, but Bellamy knows she’s nervous as fuck—she stressed about the whole riding part so much last night neither one of them caught hardly any sleep, and now Bellamy has a bruise on his arm because he offered to help her practice riding and she smacked him with the sharp corner of her notebook.

“Are you sure you don’t need me to come?” he asks, giving her horse a tentative pat on the neck. It seems calm, and maybe Clarke will be alright. She raises an eyebrow at him— _really?_ —before rolling her eyes and taking the rains, ushering her horse after the other two of its mates.

And with that, Clarke’s gone.

“Something in your eye?” Raven asks, arms crossed across her chest, making him flinch. He scowls a lot, picking up his gun and saying nothing as he passes Raven, their shoulder bumping. She takes it as an invite to tag along, falling into step with him.

“I can help you with the _combined body heat_ thing while she’s gone”, she smirks, and Bellamy wonders just how much Clarke is sharing with Raven. He gives her a look, calculating if he can trust her or not.

“What did she tell you?” he finally gives in as they reach the campfire. Monty’s cooking something in a small pot—Jaxon had started making pots and cups and cans and all sorts of stuff a few weeks ago after learning how to handle scrap metal—but it doesn’t look like food, not at all. Bellamy wrinkles his nose, idly eyeing whatever is in the pot.

“Not much”, Raven confesses, and Bellamy sighs in relief, closing his eyes.

“Did you really tell her you love her?” she asks, voice all innocent and slightly amused. He opens his eyes, glaring at her before letting out a frustrated groan. God damn it, Clarke. He places a hand on his hip, his weight shifting, and looks everywhere but at Raven.

“Three times?”

Bellamy takes a deep sigh before closing his eyes again, then nodding. Raven barks out a laugh, so loud and incredulous and genuinely surprised one that even Monty looks up from his pot. Bellamy gives her a warning look, and she covers her mouth with her fist, clearing her throat.

They stare at each other for a good moment—Bellamy’s eyes flashing with _please say no more_ , and Raven’s curious to know more. When she finally turns around, he breaks, and asks if Clarke has said anything to her. Raven stops, smirking like she knows more than he ever will.

“Clarke, she’s—she’s a complicated one”, she simply states, and jumps into a conversation with passing Jasper and Miller before Bellamy can ask more. He looks down at Monty, who shrugs, revealing he got at least the end of that conversation.

Bellamy doesn’t sleep the next night either, he’s too busy thinking.

_Clarke, Clarke, Clarke._

He feels ridiculous.

She doesn’t come back the next day, and Raven gives him a _you’re a champ_ shoulder rub somewhere in the afternoon, murmuring something like _three times, really?_ in his ear. And Bellamy doesn’t even bother to swat her away, simply groaning and looking up to the skies, wondering why he ever let the _I think_ slip.

He knows he’s not going to sleep, so he takes Miller’s night watch. He looks Bellamy in surprise, before nodding and huffing to himself, and it sounds something similar to _the things love makes you do_ , and Bellamy has to fight the urge to take back his offer.

A night on the wall helps—he’s almost drifting asleep when Monroe taps his shoulder in the early morning hours, ready to switch. And he’s too tired to be disappointed that Clarke has yet to return, simply dragging himself to their tent and falling on his bed, and falling asleep at instant.

When he finally wakes up again, it must be closer to the afternoon hours. He nuzzles closer to Clarke, burying his face in her side, sneaking under her arm—he gets a bunch of blonde hair in his mouth, but he doesn’t really care. Clarke sitting next to him, doodling in her notebook, is a pleasant surprise to wake to anyway.

“I suppose you missed me?”

Bellamy inhales deeply, rubbing his face against her shirt, mumbling, “’spose I missed you.” He’s half asleep, hence his words shouldn’t be held against him at any point, but he’s grown such a soft spot for Clarke in his heart that he would probably say the same thing in any other state of mind, at any other time of the day.

“Hey, asshole, it’s time for—“

Raven marches in the tent like she owns the damn place, but shuts up rather quickly when she sees what’s right under her nose. The cackle that escapes her lips is the same she made her the other night—when she told him he’s so whipped on her—and it makes Bellamy groan and dig deeper into Clarke’s warmth, hiding away from the light of the day.

Clarke doesn’t say anything, and when she doesn’t stop doodling either, he figures she just doesn’t care. It makes him feel good—she allows Raven to find them like this, it’s okay for her to let Raven see them like this. He doesn’t know if it’s because Raven and Clarke are, like, the best of friends nowadays and they trust each other with their lives, or because Clarke feels comfortable enough with Bellamy to be like this in front of someone else.

Either way, he’s happy.

“Time for briefing”, Raven kicks his feet, and he can hear Clarke chuckle as she lifts her arm, revealing his hiding spot. He squints at her, and reluctantly drags himself on his elbows, giving Raven a stern glance. Or as stern as he can with his eyes halfway close.

“God, you’re a fucking mess”, Raven groans, throwing a shirt at him, “why do you keep him around, huh?”

The latter is clearly meant for Clarke, and Bellamy turns to look at her, too, with this lopsided smile on his lips. Clarke looks at Raven like she said something incredibly important, then looks at Bellamy, eyes wandering all over his face. She looks back at Raven, shrugs, and gets back to doodling.

He simply snorts and pulls his shirt on—idly wondering how he wasn’t wearing one since he fell asleep with all of his clothes on. He kicks the blanket away and drags himself on the edge of the bed, pulling his shoes on. Raven’s ready to go, waiting for him.

It’s so fucking cold, he realises as he gets up, so he grabs his blanket and wraps it around his shoulders.

“You’re so fucking ridiculous”, Raven notes as he passes her, but he just gives her the finger and heads towards the campfire to brief the hunting party of the day. Today it’s Finn, Sterling and Harper. Finn dares to laugh at him, so he frowns—still very, very tired though, so he probably looks more like a puppy—and waves a hand of dismissal, telling the group that Finn surely knows what to do by now and that these briefings are stupid anyway. Miller offers him a piece of roasted rabbit— _breakfast, boss_ , he snorts even though it’s way past midday—and Bellamy stuffs it in his mouth without even glaring.

Without even excusing himself, he wanders back to the tent and collapses on the bed again. Clarke chuckles, and he lifts her arm up, just to rest his head on her hip. Her fingers move to his scalp, gently playing with his hair, and Bellamy doesn’t think he’s ever been this happy.

And as he realises that, he opens his eyes. He’s happy for the first time in God knows how long, and he really, really, really needs to hang on to this feeling. So he nuzzles against Clarke’s hip, wrapping an arm against her thighs, breathing her in. But something’s already lacking, and he can’t name what it is.

It bothers him throughout the day—when he’s helping Finn with their catch of the day, chatting about this whole deal with the grounders; when he’s welcoming Lincoln and Octavia back to camp with grounder supplies; when he’s allowing the 100 to celebrate this deal and Monty to reveal his moonshine stash.

There should be nothing bothering him, really. He’s sitting around the campfire with Miller on his side and a cup of moonshine in his hand, listening to his best friend go on and on about this Fox girl he’s really into. Around him, the 100 are chanting, singing, dancing—celebrating.

“There she is”, he interrupts Miller just to point at Fox. Miller’s eyes snap to that direction in a heartbeat, and he melts into a smile. Bellamy elbows him, gently pushing him up, “go talk to her, you loser.” Miller grins and leaves, mentioning something about pot calling the kettle black, and Bellamy pretends like he doesn’t understand what he means by it.

But speak of the devil, Clarke arrives mere minutes later, settling herself on his side, leaning her head against his shoulder. Bellamy kind of wants to wrap his arm around her, but there’s still something bothering him, and he’s still not sure if Clarke is comfortable with letting people—besides Raven, obviously—see them like _that_ , so he doesn’t.

“Having fun?” she slurs, and Bellamy’s slightly surprised—Princess is drunk, who would’ve thought. He chuckles, amused, and takes a quick look around before wrapping both of his arms around her and pressing a kiss on her head. She lets out a very unclarke-ish giggle, tearing herself away from his embrace.

“Why do I keep you around?” she asks, her smile not disappearing as she frowns at him.

“That’s a good question”, he answers, and yeah, maybe he’s talking to her like she’s a five-year-old, and yeah, maybe he’s smiling like an idiot. She smiles wider, reminding him of the sun, and her fingers sneak to intertwine with his.

“I’m going to have some more moonshine and then I’m going to have some more fun—did you know Monroe can dance? She’s fricking incredible”, she explains, excited, as she gets up. And he can’t stop with the fucking smile, their fingers lingering. When she finally lets go, he sighs.

He’s _so_ whipped.

He spots Raven and Octavia staring at him from the corner of his eyes, and they both have this incredulous look fixed on their faces. Bellamy’s smile dies, turning into a deep frown.

“What are you two looking at?” he grumbles with his leader voice, making his sister visibly flinch. Raven shakes her head like she can’t quite believe what she just saw, grabbing Octavia’s arm and tugging her to go.

“But he smiled for, like, five minutes straight”, Bellamy hears his sister say as the two leave, and snorts only a little when Raven says, “I fucking know, I’ve seen him smile once and that was when he was half asleep and picking his teeth so I don’t know if that even counts.”

Bellamy looks after them, this stupid grin conquering his face again, and it doesn’t fade until Clarke’s poking his side, making him jump. But even then, he melts into a ridiculous smile, and she simply scrunches her face at him, nodding towards their tent.

Later, in their tent, he realises what’s bugging him—the moment he had earlier. _Kairosclerosis. The moment you realise that you’re currently happy, consciously trying to savour the feeling—which prompts your intellect to identify it, pick it apart and put it in context where it will slowly dissolve until it’s little more than an aftertaste._

It’s disappointing, and Bellamy spends the whole night trying to get rid of the feeling.

Next morning, he wakes up before Clarke, which is unusual. He wakes up in a quiet camp, a quiet laugh echoing from the direction of the wall every now and then, telling him the night watch is alive and kicking. And on the top of everything, she’s _snoring_ , and he can’t help but snort a little—everything seems very unusual today.

He pulls on a shirt and a blanket—he really needs to stop showing up with a blanket, Raven says it doesn’t really verify his professionalism as a leader—and wanders outside. However, he stops as soon as his feet hit the ground outside, and he stares at his feet in amaze.

“Clarke”, he calls. He takes another step forward, admiring the marks he’s leaving behind.

“Clarke!”

His voice is more urgent, and a groaning Clarke appears in the entrance of their tent quickly enough to see Bellamy’s grin light up like a shooting star in the night sky. It takes her a moment to realise what he’s so excited about, but then she looks down, and suddenly she’s very awake.

Bellamy lets out a laugh, an incredulous, happy one, and watches as Clarke digs her hand in the snow and lifts it up, enchanted by her handprint in the snow.

“I—I’ve heard about snow”, she starts, hurrying up on her feet, “but I…”

She doesn’t need to finish the sentence, and in that moment, Bellamy takes her in his arms and kisses her in the morning mist as the snow keeps slowly falling from the dim skies. He doesn’t really care who sees, and judging by her hands sneaking under his shirt, into his hair, she doesn’t either. It’s nice, and good, and all kinds of perfect, and fuck, he loves her a lot.

It keeps snowing, and no one’s complaining about it because they finally have proper tents slash huts, they finally have enough fur and leather to make proper clothing for the winter, they finally have a good amount of meat to keep going. Bellamy thanks himself for giving Anya the idea of talking and co-existing, because right now, their biggest source of supplies are the grounders.

A week later, it’s actually Lincoln who comes to pick Clarke up, and Clarke and Bellamy spend good ten minutes making out in their tent because Bellamy still doesn’t like Lincoln all that much and because they’re going to have to be a few days apart, and God knows Bellamy doesn’t do well without Clarke. But this time, it’s a little bit easier to let her go.

However, it is incredibly boring without her around, so when Jasper informs him he’s bored too because Monty’s working on a hair shampoo—an idea Bellamy has completely given his blessing to—and Octavia’s busy with bandaging burns and wounds, and running around with Lincoln, of course. It’s not like he wouldn’t have any other company, but since Bellamy’s bored too… Two birds, one stone.

On the third day of Clarke being gone, they decide to go on a hunting trip, chattering about the snow and the cold and everything. It’s all happy and nice until they enter this open area, and they hear a crack. Bellamy stops dead on his tracks, Jasper following close behind, and points the other boy to the other side of the open.

He’s careful with his moves, sinking little bit into the snow on every step.

Then there’s a lonely whistle of an arrow, and a soft thud as it hits something, followed by a louder slump. That’s not Jasper’s gun, he realises in a heartbeat. _Shit. Snipers. Shit, shit, shit_. Bellamy dodges behind a tree, and only now he notices he’s heart is beating fucking out of his chest. He’s freezing, he’s scared, he doesn’t want to die. There’s a big rock to his right, and maybe he could cover the distance without getting spotted and—

All of his rational thinking go to shit when he spots Jasper out in the open. A slash of anger hits him—didn’t he taught them better than this, to not be in the open when it’s a fucking sniper situation, like, really—but it quickly turns into panic when he counts one plus one.

Jasper was the whistle, Jasper was the thud, Jasper was the slump.

He doesn’t stop to think, he runs like the devil is after him: he passes the rock, two or three trees, and finally dives into a ditch. And looking at his path, there’s two arrows on the trees and a hatchet of some sort on the ground. He recognises the hatchet, he’s seen similar ones hanging from grounders’ belts. His anger flares up, and he curses Anya and her deal to hell.

But his anger is secondary. Jasper is priority, so he inhales, exhales, counting to ten, trying to get his brain to work.

 _Great. At least two grounders. Probably three_ , he reckons after taking a more rational look at the arrows and the hatchet, and closes his eyes, wondering if this is how he’ll die. It’s embarrassing, really, how scared he is right now, how hard his heart is beating and how hard he’s clutching the gun with his frozen fingers.

 _It’s okay_ , he tells himself. _Do it, just take a look, you’ll live_.

Gathering some probably suicidal courage, he peeks over the edge and— _fuck, fuck, fuck_ , an arrow buries itself in the snow right in front of his face. Needless to say, he slumps back in to the ditch, his back against the dirt. _Fuck, fuck, fuck_.

He needs to get Jasper. He’s not going to leave him behind.

Crawling in his ditch, he’s slowly getting closer to the huge fallen oak tree he and Clarke had once sat on and shared stories about their lives on the Ark. All the warm, fuzzy feelings he gets from that particular memory are gone as soon as he sees Jasper from just a few metres away.

His goggles are on the ground, and he’s making all these quiet gurgling sounds, and Bellamy doesn’t really think too much of it until he notices two arrows sticking up from his body. One of them is on his shoulder and the other close to his throat, and Bellamy hates himself for thinking if this is the time Clarke won’t be able to help.

 _Fuck it_.

He wishes, he honest to God wishes he could just say fuck it, do whatever it takes and save Jasper. But he’s grown to be smarter than that, and he hates how him being smart might cost Jasper’s life. Think, Bellamy, think.

Seconds pass, probably minutes pass, and Jasper won’t stop twitching and choking and looking at Bellamy with glassy, desperate eyes. Every now and then someone shoots an arrow on the ground, around his body as if they wanted to play a little before offing him.

“I’m gonna get you, buddy”, Bellamy assures him, and looks around him. There’s fucking nothing he can do, nothing he can use to his advance.

So fuck it.

He fires his gun towards the general direction of where the arrows kept coming from, and he makes a beeline for Jasper, grabbing his collar and dragging him to the ditch. Bellamy sighs, relieved, and props him up against the dirt, trying to figure out if there anything he can do.

Jasper starts crying, and once again Bellamy remembers that they are just kids, children.

“Hey, Jas, Jas, just look at me, it’s okay, you’re gonna be okay, I’ll get you back, okay? You’re gonna be fine, trust me, yeah?”

But he won’t stop crying, his broken sobs turning into choked, panicked breaths.

So Bellamy does the only thing he knows what to do: he collapses against the wall and puts his arms around Jasper, holding him and telling him it’s going to be alright. He doesn’t know if it’s smart to stay put when there’s grounder or two out there so close to them, but right now he doesn’t really care either.

When the boy in his arms finally calms down, Bellamy lets out a heavy sigh. He’s relieved, he’s alive, they’re alive, they’re alright, they’ll make it.

“Jasper?”

Bellamy’s whisper sounds is like a roar in the middle of the quiet forest. When Jasper doesn’t answer, Bellamy shifts, taking his head in his hands, “Jasper. Look at me.”

And he does, and he’s not glassy-eyed anymore. He’s pale, sweating, eyes red from crying and nose red from the cold, and he looks at Bellamy like he’s on the very verge of breaking down.

“You’ll make it.”

“D’you promise?”

Bellamy doesn’t hesitate when he looks into Jasper’s eyes and nods, “I promise.”

They slide further down the hill until Bellamy feels like it’s safe to stand up. Good thing he knows these woods like he knows his own pockets—he knows exactly how to get to the camp, and it’s getting dark, too. Perfect cover.

He snaps the arrows to make everything easier, and he winces only a little when Jasper swallows his sobs and bites his fist to help the pain. He wishes he could do something, but he can’t and he has to deal with it. He’s no healer, and all he can do is force Jasper to climb on his back and tell him to hold on tightly.

It’s quiet, eerily quiet considering it’s Jasper, and it’s breaking Bellamy’s heart.

“Why me? Always…me”, Jasper tries to chuckle when Bellamy asks him if he’s still there, and instead he just coughs up blood, getting it on Bellamy’s cheek and fur and everything. But he’s too busy being sick with worry to actually be bothered by it.

“You just have shit luck, bud”, Bellamy manages as he tries to get a better grip on the other boy. He’s not sure if Jasper is completely here with him after all, but he sure as hell isn’t holding on to him like he should.

And when Jasper doesn’t answer, Bellamy decides to run.

_Clarke, Clarke, Clarke._

He’s out of breath by the time they reach the wall, Miller immediately jumping down and helping them in while barking orders to other kids. Raven, Finn and Jones jump to help, and honestly, Bellamy is more than happy to let them help. He just… needs a moment.

“Get Clarke”, he calls after them, and Miller stops dead on his tracks, turning to look at him. And there it is, that face you’d imagine a kid having when they have bad news for their parents, news that they know will make their parents mad, and Bellamy fucking gets it, “Clarke’s not here.”

It’s not a question, it’s a statement, a realisation.

“No", Miller shifts, clearly uncomfortable with being the one to deliver the news.

“She’s still with the grounders”, he starts, and when Bellamy raises an eyebrow, as if to say _yes, go on_ , he sighs, “and Octavia’s with her.”

The realisation that they have no capable medics or healers or nurses or fucking anything available sinks in slower than it should, and so does Bellamy, back against the camp wall, sinking all the way down until his sorry ass is freezing on the snow.

Jasper is going to die, and there’s nothing Bellamy can do about it.

“Bell, you okay?” Miller comes to grab his shoulder, giving it a tentative rub as if to comfort him.

He’s not okay, he’s everything but okay. He feels sick to his stomach, like he could throw up. His vision is blurring, his feet refuse to work with him, and he’s not okay, at all.

“I need to—“, he starts weakly, fumbling for Miller’s upper arm blindly, “I need to get up—I need—I need to get to Jas.” Miller can’t probably understand half of his mumbles, but he helps him up anyway and follows him to the dropship.

Raven’s standing in the doorway, giving him the look that says it all. But Bellamy’s eyes are still asking, so she shakes her head. It’s all very impressive and tough, all the way until she sniffles and her gaze snaps to anything else but Bellamy.

He rushes inside, nearly tumbling down on his way, and falls down on his knees next to Jasper. From the corner of his eye, he can see Finn sitting against the wall with his head buried in his hands, and he wonders if anyone has told Monty. Monty. Monty should be here. Monty deserves to be here. Monty needs to be here. Monty belongs here, by Jasper’s side.

“Get Monty”, Bellamy orders, and even he flinches at the harshness of his voice. Finn does nothing, just looks at him like he feels sorry for him, and that’s when Bellamy gets up, kicking Clarke’s neatly organised medical table down on his way, and yells at Finn to get his shit together and go get Monty because Monty needs to be here, because Jasper needs Monty here.

Finn scrambles out of the dropship faster than lightning, and when Bellamy can finally hear Monty’s name being called out, he grabs Jasper’s hand and a broken fucking sob escapes his throat. And Jasper fucking chuckles, amused and weak, and Bellamy can feel him squeezing his hand—it’s not much, but it’s something, and Bellamy knows he shouldn’t hope, but he hopes, he hopes so much.

“You promised”, Jasper’s lips curl up as he shakes Bellamy’s hand, and Bellamy’s heart is fucking shattering. He promised, and Jasper is still dying. He promised, and he didn’t keep his promise.

“I’m so sorry, Jas”, he whispers, pressing his forehead against their hands.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, man, that’s just rude. And you’re being, like, really gay right now. I’m gonna tell everyone”, Jasper grins weakly with this spark in his eyes.

Bellamy blurts out a laugh, a short and desperate one, and God, does he love this kid. He wants to say it, tell Jasper he loves him, but as the words are dancing on the tip of his tongue, Monty rushes in and Bellamy fades into the background, because he doesn’t belong here, between them.

So instead, he falls into his thoughts, slumping down against the dropship wall. He doesn’t come back until he hears screaming, feels Finn shaking him— _Bellamy, come on, we need you!_ —and sees Jasper withering like he’s possessed.

Later on, when Bellamy is sitting outside, back against the outside of the wall, Jasper’s goggles in his hands, he wonders how he would’ve told his parents. _Your son died honourably in a war against a violent, rival tribe. He was shot on the battlefield, and he died instantly, without any pain, surrounded by his friends. Your son is a war hero on Earth, be proud. Jasper died as a hero._

He snorts, blinking away a tear.

The truth is, Jasper died after getting shot on a completely ordinary hunting trip—they were unfortunate enough to get ambushed, like, fucking hell, even the grounders probably had no idea that the whole shit would go down, nor should they have even fired at them in the first place.

The truth is, Jasper died screaming for help and for God and for his mother, crying out in agony while his friends looked on helplessly. Jasper died scared, withering in agony on the floor of the dropship, in the age of seventeen.

The truth is, Jasper died and Bellamy let it happen.

The truth is, Bellamy promised that he wouldn’t die, that he would be alright.

“Why are you sitting out here?”

Octavia’s voice brings him out of his thoughts, and he raises his gaze from his hands to her face. Clarke’s right behind her, both wrapped in their furs, bags full of what looks like plants. She pulls the scarf covering her mouth and nose down, crouching in front of him.

She doesn’t say anything, just studies him until she spots the goggles. Bellamy holds them out for her, for Octavia to see, too. It takes a moment from both of them to realise what's going on. Octavia is the first one—she covers her mouth, shaking her head slowly, because no, Jasper can’t be dead and gone. Bellamy’s pretty sure she can see tears, and it’s too much. He looks at Clarke, his ever so calm and collected Princess with piercing blue eyes. In the background, he can hear Octavia taking off, probably rushing to the dropship as if she could get a glimpse of Jasper one last time. But Clarke stays.

“I promised”, Bellamy starts, his eyes falling to the goggles again. He has to swallow and clear his throat, wipe his nose, his eyes, and swallow again, then sniffling, “I promised him he wouldn’t die.” And a laugh escapes his lips before he can do anything about it. He’s so fucking stupid it’s ridiculous, pathetic.

“Only make that promise if you know you can keep it”, Clarke states, gets up and goes.

“Yeah, fucking got it now”, Bellamy calls after her, furiously sending a fistful of snow after her, because doesn’t she get it? He’s not a healer, he doesn’t know shit. He’s Bellamy, he’s all heart and all gut-feelings, and he’s damn well going to promise a kid he’s going to live if that’s what it takes to make him breathe again, to make him try to stay alive just a little bit longer.

After she’s gone, it gets dark, it starts snowing again, and he drowns back into his abyss.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there until it hits him.

_83._

He scrambles up, all the way to their little graveyard, and he starts digging.

When Clarke finds him, it’s morning, and he’s done very little. Clarke tells him the ground is frozen, that there’s nothing he can do, that it’s okay, and he screams and yells and throws dirt and snow at her, because it’s not okay, because it’s everything but fucking okay.

He screams and screams and screams, he screams until his voice drowns under choked sobs and broken cries, and then he just falls down on his knees, wondering why Jasper, why always Jasper. But Clarke’s there, dropping on her knees too, and taking his head in her hands. He grabs her wrists, and he fucking cries his eyes out because Jasper didn’t deserve to die.

Clarke presses a kiss on his forehead, and his breathing starts to steady again. He holds on to her wrists like she’s a god damn saviour, and he holds on until he can see clearly again.

And when he finally leans back, she simply looks at him, straight into his hopeless, desperate eyes.

And when the numb _I’m so sorry_ falls from Bellamy’s lips, Clarke’s there to catch it with a _it’s not your fault_ and a kiss. She’s never kissed him like this, and he never thought she would kiss him like this—he never thought they would face a situation like this, never thought he would feel like he’s feeling now.

“Come on, then”, she whispers against his lips, gently moving his hands into her own. Bellamy feels like he’s on autopilot, getting up from what looks more like a sad foxhole rather than a grave and following Clarke.

She takes him to his tent—their tent, he figures—and with careful fingers she starts opening the strings holding his furs together. She peels them off layer by layer, stopping to open a knot or a zipper or a button, letting them fall on the ground with silent thuds. And Bellamy’s just staring, staring at the red on his fur.

Clarke kisses his jaw, slow and gentle, almost loving. Her fingers trace along the hem of his longsleeve, sneaking underneath and dragging her nails across his waist. It sends chills down his spine, and he shivers at the touch. She places another kiss on his jaw, then another and another, tracking along his jawline, mapping her way to his lips.

She kisses him like she never has, and he tastes love.

There’s a small moan of pleasure when he finally wraps his arms around her, so tightly their bodies press together and their kiss deepens. It all seems very slow and calculating, but they’re in a rush—a desperate, needy rush. They always are, and this time is no different.

He’s breathless when she finally pulls back, getting rid of her furs and layers, leaving herself in her worn-out longsleeve and underwear. She rushes back to his lips before he can say a word, and he lets her. She’s not being slow and gentle anymore, unzipping his jeans with one hand and tangling the other in his hair. And he answers by pushing her hair to the side and biting into her neck, hands playing with the waistline of her panties. She lets another sound escape the back of throat as she finally gets his cock out and in her hand, her other hand travelling up across his stomach to meet his chest.

“Come on, then”, she whispers, again, leading them towards his bed—their bed, he figures—and pulling him on top of her. She pulls him down for kisses, whispering _it’s okay_ s between them _._

And Bellamy can feel himself slowly flaring up again. It’s not okay, it’s not okay at all.

He kisses her with more force, teeth clashing and lips bruising like they usually do, and she wraps her legs around his waist, thrusting her hips up as an invitation. Wasting no time, he slides her panties aside and pushes into her, hardly even noticing her slightly wincing.

They kiss again, and again, and again, until their kisses turn more and more sloppy and his thrusts more and more frantic. She’s quiet, and normally Bellamy would be anything but okay with that, but today is not normal.

He comes with a soft grunt, leaning his forehead against her collarbone, and she simply wraps her arms around his head, fingers idly playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. It’s soothing, comforting even, and he really just wants to stay there.

It takes him a while to move, and when he does, he feels ashamed, even slightly disgusted by himself—this isn’t how he had wanted this to go. He looks at Clarke—the wonderful, naked Clarke who looks at him like he’s broken, like she’s sorry for him—and he whispers his apologies to her, a hand already on its way towards where their bodies are still joined.

She stops him before he can get there, intertwining her fingers with his and bringing them to her lips, kissing his cold knuckles, “it’s okay.”

“It’s not”, he replies, finally falling next to her. She settles herself on the crook of his neck, their bodies intertwining together like two pieces of a puzzle.

“I know”, she whispers, wrapping them in blankets and furs, and gives him one last kiss.

He wakes up in the middle of the night to a kicking and screaming Clarke, and he shakes her awake too, his hands on her shoulders and a worried look in his eyes. She breaks into sobs, face buried in his chest, and all Bellamy can make out of her mess of sobs is _I didn’t get to say goodbye_.

It breaks his heart.

There’s nothing Bellamy can say, nothing he can do. He just looks at her with comfortless eyes. She falls asleep—sweating, restless sleep—in his arms, but he stays awake.

The camp is eerily quiet in the following morning—everybody knew Jasper, everybody loved Jasper. Monty tells Bellamy it’d be pointless to even try to dig a grave, and Raven suggests they burn his body. Clarke pipes in, telling that some people back in the day were indeed burned and their ashes buried or thrown into the sea or something, that it was completely acceptable funeral.

This is the first funeral they have—this is the first time they have time to mourn.

 _84_ , Bellamy thinks, seeing Murphy in the back of his head.

 _83_ , Bellamy thinks, looking at Jasper’s lifeless body on a wooden bed.

Jasper looks peaceful, and Monty next to him is holding his goggles, speaking to him softly. The rest of the 100 stay back, giving him the time he needs. Finally, he sets the goggles on Jasper’s head, right where they belong. He nods to Bellamy, eyes shiny, and Clarke reaches out a hand for him, pulling him into a tight hug.

“Are we sure we want to do this? What if he’ll come back? You know, like zombies? Second rising?” the voice belongs to a younger boy, Chuck, and he sounds like he’s serious.

“That’s bullshit, Chuck”, Miller tells him before Bellamy can, turning to give him a look and throw a sharp snowball at him. A quiet rumble of laughter echoes through the 100— _83_ , Bellamy thinks—until it dies down.

“That’s actually why Jasper never even wanted to be buried. Said he doesn’t really like brains”, Monty breaks the silence, taking the torch from Bellamy with a shy smile. “He wouldn’t want to take the risk, to turn into an undead walker or something.”

The melancholic grin on Monty’s face tells Bellamy it’s all true, and he rubs the younger boy’s shoulder, hoping it’d bring him some comfort. Monty takes a deep breath, walking to the wooden bed, and drops the torch.

It all lights up, and they all sit tight until the fire dies.

Bellamy thinks of kairosclerosis, the feeling that had him worried earlier, and he thinks how he would take that over whatever the hell this numbness is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i told you i was sorry??? this is what i warned y'all in the tags
> 
> ((just a quick reminder: english is my third language so i apologise for any mistakes!!))


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies in the end again, but i'm trying to make up the last chapter with bad smut #gross

> **rubatosis (n.)**

They’ll bounce back. They always do—he always does.

But they don’t—can’t, won’t—and he can’t but look on helplessly. For the first time in what has felt like forever, he feels lonely. It’s almost like he’s in a movie—one of those old films from Hollywood or whatever—and it’s that one scene when the main character is watching his life fall apart.

Bellamy’s watching his whole life fall apart, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Octavia is the first one to tell him that it’s all in his head, that the camp is doing alright, that maybe they’re not what they used to be, that they’re functioning. And he just stares at her—there’s this empty look fixed on his face, and it seems to be there to stay—until she leaves, shaking her head in defeat.

Finn is the second one to tell him that maybe they’ll be okay one day, that it wasn’t Bellamy’s fault, that it wasn’t Clarke’s fault, that it wasn’t anyone’s fault. He grabs him by the arm, searching for his eyes, only to find nothing.

“I’ll let you push me off the cliff if it makes you happy”, he says, merely joking.

 _82_ , Bellamy flinches, wide-eyed.

“That’s not funny”, he says back, and he sounds so, so tired. Finn lets go of his arm, and he looks like a heartbreak as he walks away.

Miller is the third one to approach him, but he doesn’t say anything. They sit in silence, sharing a piece of roasted rabbit—Bellamy’s favourite. He even has a cup for Bellamy, with the word BOSS engraved on it. Miller looks proud, telling him Jaxon had taught him how to do it, and Bellamy decides not to complain about the slightly metallic taste in his moonshine.

The first day after turns into lots of days after, even weeks after, but Bellamy stays crippled.

It’s Clarke who spends her days running around the camp, organising hunting parties and making sure everything’s going on as it should.

It’s Clarke who tosses and turns in her restless sleep, letting out hoarse cries and chokes sobs until Bellamy gathers her in his arms.

Then, nineteen days before Christmas, there’s a bitter scream coming from the wall.

“Grounders!”

It’s Monroe’s voice, and Bellamy gets up in a heartbeat. Miller runs to him a moment later, telling they have Monroe and Harper on the wall, Jones and Reed in the trees, a couple more on the ground—basically, they have eleven guns aimed at the grounder parade about to march to their gates. None of them flinch, none of them even eyes at the guns, and it all yells _guilt, guilt, guilt_ to the 100, mourning their loss.

Miller helps him up on the wall, and he’s surprised.

There must be more than dozen grounders, most on their horses, creating a neat formation. And they’re all carrying what looks like gifts—flowers, furs, meat, wood—and Bellamy barks out a bitter, bitter laugh. Clarke climbs up, too, and he wishes she wouldn’t be here.

No one moves a muscle when they come to a halt, and Anya raises her hand, snapping her fingers. Behind her, one of her usual guards—Bellamy’s disgusted to be on an almost first-name basis with these people—drags two other grounders in view. They’re tied, bruised and battered—they look like they’ve been through hell—and it takes Bellamy mere seconds to understand what’s going on.

Anya doesn’t need to say anything, he gets it.

“That’s not who we are”, he calls from the wall, and Clarke’s fingers tangle with his.

“Fine”, Anya says, swinging herself off her horse. Bellamy jumps on the ground as well— _many things, but not disrespectful_ , he recalls—and the two walk up to meet each other. She doesn’t budge, holding her head so high he kind of wants to punch her in the face.

They wait, and wait, and wait.

“Sorry for your loss”, she finally says, offering a hand for Bellamy to shake. He doesn’t take it, eyes fixed on hers, and she turns around, snow creaking under her boots.

The grounders leave them with four horses, enough meat to feed them for the rest of the month, lots and lots of furs and wood, different sorts of plants… And the two grounders, the ones who killed Jasper. Bellamy doesn’t want to deal with them, simply leaving them behind the gates, outside the camp. They don’t speak or move, they hardly even flinch—they just stay on their knees, avoiding eye contact.

“We should kill them”, Clarke pleads him one day, linking their hands.

“No”, he snaps, and even he gets little startled by the roughness in his voice. Her hands leave his in less than a heartbeat, and she bites her lip just enough to swallow down whatever she was about to say. Bellamy watches her go, and kicks down a neat stack of firewood, wondering when it all got so difficult.

He tries to remember the days when he had spent his day thinking about all the ways to get under Princess’ skin and when his biggest problem had been someone from the Ark contacting them. But he can hardly remember—all he can feel is pain, constant pain, and he feels like it’s never going to end.

The grounders get killed by roaming wolves two days later, and they die quietly, and all Bellamy wants them to do is cry out in agony, scream for help, for God, for their mothers. But they don’t, and he’s still hollow.

Everybody else seems to move on, they even have small celebrations on what they think is Christmas Day—they’re like almost sure, and Bellamy, the one keeping count, doesn’t tell them they’re three days late.

But they move on.

Sure, every now and then someone mentions Jasper, only to have sadness fill their eyes, and every now and then someone visits where they bottled his ashes, only to come back with puffy, red eyes. Bellamy doesn’t do either. He actively avoids both, and avoids everyone who does either.

Twenty days after, and Clarke asks him if he’s okay.

Bellamy looks at her, and God, she looks so tired and so much older. Bellamy looks at her, and _what a shame it must be to have your eighteenth birthday celebrated like this_. He doesn’t say anything, just swallows his apologies and nods. He’s okay.

He stops sleeping next to her, staying up and taking the night watch instead. She stills tosses and turns, cries and screams in her sleep, but he feels so numb, numb, _numb_ he can’t understand how someone can feel so much.

Harper comes to him one day, suggesting they go ahead and just attack the grounder camp. And if it was any other day, he would look at her like she’s fucking insane because that’s what she is. But this is not any other day, so he simply tilts his head, trying to understand why she’s so angry and he’s not. But he doesn’t, and she shakes her head with frustration.

God, he wishes he’d be like them, wishes he’d feel something so strong like grief or hatred.

But he doesn’t—can’t, won’t.

“You okay?” Miller asks him, exactly a month after Jasper’s death. Bellamy looks up, only to see Miller with his nearly black face and stained clothing, and he can’t help but wonder what the other boy has been up to. He looks at him for a moment too long, before dropping his gaze into his own hands—for some reason, he keeps seeing blood on his hands. He knows there’s none on his hands, but there’s still blood on his hands.

Miller sighs and shifts, and to Bellamy, he seems uncomfortable. He gives the wave of dismissal, idly frowning, but Miller doesn’t leave. Instead, he’s grabbing Bellamy’s arm, trying to get him up from the crate he’s sitting on.

“Honestly, Nathan, it doesn’t matter”, he tries groaning, but he’s still ushered up.

“Look”, he finally says, still holding Bellamy’s arm, “you matter, Bell. You matter to me, to everyone else. We’re not just going to watch you drown in guilt or what-fucking-ever you’re drowning in.”

Miller’s eyes are stern, and for a moment Bellamy forgets that there’s actually five years between them and that he’s the five years older one. He doesn’t realise he looks slightly startled until Miller tugs his sleeve, murmuring a soft _come_.

He walks the two of them across the camp, all the way to the graveyard. It was never meant to be a graveyard, it had been just a place to dump the bodies—far away from the camp not to be a daily reminder, close enough to drag new bodies in.

But now, it is a graveyard, _the_ graveyard—their graveyard.

Miller stops at the gates—they have gates, they have a fence—and Bellamy wanders deeper, wondering if this is a dream. It’s peaceful in every way—he can hear the camp living softly in the background, but otherwise it’s quiet, wind playing in the trees and snow falling to the ground.

He can see stones, and he remembers reading about gravestones. All of them look different, whether it’s their colour or shape, and all of them have something graved on the front. He crouches in front of the first one, and it happens to be Wells’.

 _WELLS_ , it reads, letter little wonky, _CHANCELLOR OF EARTH_.

A lonely laugh almost escapes his lips, turning into a quiet chuckle as he touches the writing, eyes moving to other ones. All of them have names and an inside joke kind of a deal—a quote, a nickname—and Bellamy feels warmth in his heart. He reads them one by one, taking time to remember all the people behind the names.

The last one has _JASPER_ on it. His goggles—they had turned out to be fireproof, Monty had picked them up from the ashes—hang from the edge of the stone, and there’s even a crappy caricature of him with the goggles on graved on the stone.

 _Fear's only a problem if you let it stop you_.

That’s Jasper’s quote—it’s a bit lengthier than all the others, and there isn’t a fun memory to recall. But it’s a solid advice he had once given, and God, Bellamy misses that idiot so much.

“I know gravestones are supposed to have, like, your full name and your day of birth and your day of, well, death, and maybe an angel because I think gravestones were, like, more of a religious thing—“

That’s all Miller manages to ramble before Bellamy interrupts him.

“Did you make these?”

A shy smile appears on Miller’s lips, and he even looks little proud as he nods, “Jaxon taught me how to grave shit, so… Yeah.”

Bellamy idly wonders what Miller will grave on his stone.

He turns to look at Jasper’s stone, looking at the silly drawing of him, and turns to look at Miller again, “that’s pretty shitty.” Miller lets out a breathy laugh like he’d been holding his breath, and he sounds almost relieved. Bellamy walks up to him, putting a hand on his shoulder for a second before he decides to wrap his arms around the other boy, pressing his face against his shoulder.

“Thank you”, Bellamy manages, swallowing a sob before. Miller just pats his back, and when they part, there’s definitely a proud smile on his lips.

They walk back to camp in silence, Miller giving a comforting squeeze to his shoulder before going his own way. Bellamy sits down on one of the logs around the campfire, crossing his hands and leaning his cheek on them, thinking.

Fear’s only a problem if you let it stop you.

Is he afraid? Is that what’s going on? What is he so afraid of?

“You’ve become so sentimental it’s disgusting”, Raven interrupts his thought process, wrinkling her nose at him, and he instantly knows it’s a joke. He looks up at her, tilting his head like he’s really thinking something—the look makes her seem alarmed for a moment, and she already takes a step forward with a worried frown. But Bellamy laughs—he utters out a laugh, burying his face in his hands, because he’s laughing. He’s actually laughing—he had thought he’d never laugh again—and he laughs until his laughter turns into hiccups. Then it’s Raven turns to laugh, and they laugh until their tummies hurt, until no sounds come out, until their cheeks feel stuck.

They laugh until Bellamy cries, but Raven’s still smiling, patting his knee, “it’s alright, Bell.”

“Yeah”, he sniffles, covering her hand with his own, “yeah.”

His _thank you_ is a silent smile, and she just squeezes his knee. And as if on cue, Miller calls her name a moment later, and she manages to give him just another smile before her hand slips away.

Bellamy is so sentimental, though, it is true. He scoffs to himself—incredulous, disbelieving. How did he get like this? He didn’t care for anyone else but Octavia for the longest of time, and suddenly there’s a hundred kids he cares for.

Well, a hundred kids plus one, Raven.

Or actually, a hundred kids plus Raven plus one.

He cares about himself, for himself.

He matters.

It’s an alarming sensation to realise this is the first time he really, truly matters somewhere. He matters, not only to Miller, but to everyone else, too. He is almost—if not just _is_ —a necessity. The kids, they all need him. _Clarke_ needs him.

He can’t remember the last time he actually spoke to her.

“Raven!”

She isn’t too far away to turn when he calls her, and he gets up, jogging the last steps to reach her. Miller stops as well, but Bellamy doesn’t really mind if he’s here to hear what he’s about to say or not.

“Where’s Clarke?”

Raven smirks like she just won a bet—which could very well be true, he realises—and nods towards the dropship. He thanks her with a smile, and she ushers Miller to move on. The walk to the dropship is far too long, so he jogs again, his feet light on the snow.

“Hi”, he says breathlessly, and she frowns from where she’s sitting with her legs crossed, wrapping rags into neat rolls.

“Hi”, she replies, focusing back at her work.

“I forgot your birthday”, Bellamy opens the conversation, realising he doesn’t really have a gift for her. He makes a mental note to ask Monty about the shampoo progress—last time they had talked about it, Monty had mentioned something about possible hair loss and burns on your scalp.

Clarke turns her head to look at him, this awkward smile on her lips. It’s like she’s trying really hard and still not quite getting there, and it’s heartbreaking.

“It’s okay”, she breathes out, and Bellamy lunges forward to hug her from the side, wrapping his arms around her and resting his chin on her head. She sighs, melting into his embrace, hands curling around his arms.

“It’s not”, he murmurs into her hair after a moment. It feels so good to be close to her again, to touch her skin, to hear her breathing, to smell her scent, to feel her heartbeat. He wishes he could taste her, too, but he doesn’t dare.

“I’m not”, she whispers back, and Bellamy’s pretty sure she’s crying. Shit.

“Clarke, Clarke, hey”, he tries, moving in front of her. It’s not helping, and she’s still sobbing and for a split second, it’s him and Jasper in the winter forest again. The flashback hits the air out of him, and he’s just staring, staring, staring, looking on helplessly. Bellamy swallows, but the knot in his throat won’t go away. _I’m sorry about the arrows in your chest_ , he wants to say, _I wish they were in mine_.

He snaps out of it because Clarke falls through his fingers, her knees hitting the ground. He follows, returning to this very moment—remembering that there’s nothing he can do to bring Jasper back, that it wasn’t his fault.

“Clarke”, he tries again—she needs to snap out of this too. He doesn’t understand what’s so wrong all of the sudden, he really doesn’t. But he has a hunch, and he’s going to act on it no matter how unsettling it might be—but Clarke needs to remember.

“Look”, he places a hand on her chest, right on her heart—he knows where it beats, he’s spent enough night listening to the steady beat. Clarke looks at him, all confused, eyes slightly red from crying.

“Look”, he repeats, and as she calms down, finally feels her heartbeat, “you’re alive. You need to remember. You are alive. This is your heart. Can you feel it? With every beat, your heart tells you _I’m here, I’m here, I’m here._ Every beat, Clarke, every beats tells you you’re here, you’re alive.”

Her hand wanders on his chest, too, and he can feel his own heartbeat quickening embarrassingly fast under her hand. He inhales, slow and deep, trying to steady his racing heart.

"We’re alive”, he whispers, “rubatosis.”

“Then can you stop pretending like you’re dead?”

Her voice is barely a whisper, and he swallows, “yeah.” Her eyes move from her hand on his chest to his eyes, and he stares right back, drowning in the blue of her eyes. The second yeah is much quieter, a hoarse whisper.

When Bellamy leaves the dropship and goes to tell Harper he’s going to stop covering her night watches, she complains only a little, finally agreeing with a shrug and a groan like a proper teenager. Bellamy’s always liked that kid.

“Bellamy”, Clarke greets him with surprise in her voice, later in the night, when he returns to their tent for what feels like the first time all over again. He’s secretly pleased to find that Clarke never left to go live with Raven or something, but instead made his place hers—there’s her clothes on the floor, that one grey wolf fur Jasper had hunted for her because it’d go nicely with her eyes, her notebooks, her pens; her everything, scattered all over their little home.

“Sorry about the mess”, she interrupts his gaze swiping through the place, and finished pulling her longsleeve off, grabbing his t-shirt from the table instead, “I’ll clean this up, I just didn’t think you would come b—“

And that’s all she needs to say before Bellamy moving towards her, pulling her into a kiss. She doesn’t hold him, arms tangled in the sleeves of his t-shirt, but she kisses him back. When they pull apart—for air, for words—she doesn’t look him in the eye.

“Do you still love me?” she asks, pulling the t-shirt over her head and on her body.

“Always”, he breathes out too quickly. Clarke’s motions stop, and she looks at him.

“You’re ridiculous”, she whispers, wrapping her arms around his middle and pulling him close, raising on her tippy toes to press a kiss on his lips. She doesn’t stop there, though, placing another one on the corner of his mouth, then another on his jaw, and another on his neck—whispering _you’re ridiculous_ before each and every one. And before he even notices, her hands sneak between their bodies, fingers sliding through two front belt loops of his jeans, tugging him closer.

This isn’t what Bellamy had had in mind when he had lunged to kiss her, not at all, but he’ll fucking take it. She kisses her pulse point, and he all but tilts his head to give her better access to the raw skin of his neck, and she gladly bites down. He tangles his fingers in her braided mess of hair and sneaks his other hand under her shirt, fingers pressing into her skin.

It’s Clarke who moves them, backing him until his calves hit the wooden frame of his bed—it was the first one Celine, this one incredibly creative girl who was also amazing with her hands, had done, and she’d given it to Bellamy to try it out, and while it was probably the ugliest and most crooked bed he’d ever seen, he fucking loves it.

She pushes him down, and he rests his weight on his elbows, raising an eyebrow at her. She moves her hands and pops the button of her jeans open, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek. He can see her shiver in the cool winter air even though they’re in their hut with the fire crackling in its hole in the middle of the tent.

Bellamy reaches towards her when she pulls the shirt off again—he sits on the edge of his bed with her between his legs, and he buries his face in her stomach, hands wandering to the small of her back. She lets out a laugh, fingers tugging his hair to make him stop, but he doesn’t—can’t, won’t—instead just presses a trail of kisses on her creamy skin.

“Hey, Clarke, do you know—”

And of course it’s Miller, stepping in like it’s his god damn home.

“Well, shit”, he mumbles, clearly flustered, and turns to look away. Clarke doesn’t bother to cover herself, and Bellamy doesn’t bother to move. And Miller is at a loss for words. It’s Clarke who sighs at the silence, grabbing the jacket he had shrugged off no longer than a moment ago and pulling it on—Bellamy quite likes seeing her in his clothes.

“I’ll help you”, she tells Miller with a smile before turning to Bellamy, voice lower and quieter like a secret, “you, don’t move a muscle.” With a mischievous smirk—he all but recalls the hallucination he had, Clarke telling him to fuck her until she can’t walk—she leads apologising Miller out of the tent.

Bellamy falls on his back, feeling somewhat content, the constant ache in his chest dulling for a moment. He sighs, closing his eyes, and falls asleep, only to miss Clarke crawling back in the tent, shrugging the jacket off in a hurry before realising he’s asleep.

However, he doesn’t miss the way she’s wrapped around him when he wakes up, or how they both slept their way through the whole night, in peace.

They start bouncing back after that day. Or Bellamy does—once his eyes are open, he sees the camp started bouncing back a while ago, he had been the one dragging behind. There’s still a grey cloud hanging over the camp, and it gets darker whenever someone mentions Jasper, but the sun is shining anyway—both metaphorically and literally, and Bellamy loves the frosty days filled with sunlight.

There’s this one particularly sunny day, and the four of them—Bellamy, Clarke, Raven, Jaxon—are working on a door. You’d think three people is too much for a door, but they’re really serious about building houses—they had all seen pictures and sketches and blueprint of actual houses, and they were all excited to make some of their own when the ground would let them.

But for houses, you need doors, and it’s not that simple here.

Raven decides to get the first two hinges from the hatch separating the first and second floor of the dropship—Bellamy’s little disappointed because he had had great plans to go down on Clarke there, safely behind a locked up hatch—and after that, Jaxon leaves to figure out how to make similar ones from scrap metal. That they have enough, unlike extra hinges.

Clarke’s trying to figure out the measurements with Raven, doodling sketches and writing down little snippets of information—both of the girls have their brows furrowed, and they’re even fighting over unimportant stuff every now and then, the first one being about how thick should the wood on the door use and the latest one about what kind of knobs they should have.

Raven finally walks off to a box of scrap metal to support her argument about cool door knobs, Clarke taking the moment to boil her bandage rags to disinfect them, and Bellamy catches himself staring at Clarke.

He’s absolutely staring.

Clarke, by no means, is perfect. She’s broken and battered, constantly battling her past—just like everyone else down here. She’s practical, smart, good with her hands. She’s impatient, naïve, just a little too emotional. But Bellamy loves her, all of her—not just the way her blonde locks frame her pretty face or the way her blue eyes light up with every smile, not just the curve of her hips or the crook of her neck.

He’s staring, and he doesn’t realise until Clarke speaks up, her eyes no longer on her notebook.

“What are you thinking?”

It’s one of her favourite questions nowadays—something she’s always filling the silence with, something that always sparks up a conversation after another. He never thought his thoughts would be so interesting to someone. And with Clarke, he has learned to be honest—with trust issues size of Mount Weather, it’s been a tough road, but he trusts her.

He trusts her with his thoughts, he trusts her with his life.

To Bellamy, there’s not much of a difference between the two, anyway.

“Bell”, she starts again, “what are you thinking?”

“I want to fuck you senseless.”

His words come out of his mouth before he can help it, and he’s so in his head that he hardly even notices Clarke blushing. Somewhere behind Bellamy, there’s a loud thud and lots of other sounds, and he startles, turning around—it’s Raven, walking into a tree with a box full of scrap metal. She looks like she’s in the most wrong place, at the most wrong time.

Bellamy turns backs to Clarke, and quickly, with his earnest voice, adds, “and hold your hand the next morning.”

He can hear Raven snort in the distance, and Clarke in front him is a flustered, red mess of weird noises escaping her lips, and he wants to laugh. But most of all, he wants to fuck her senseless, and then hold her hand. Hold her hand lots.

“Shit”, Bellamy suddenly realises how fucking rude and inappropriate and basically sexually harassing he is, a hand shooting up to run over his face, “I’m sorry.”

“I—“

“I didn’t mean to come on to you or anything, it’s just a reflex—you ask me what I’m thinking and I’m honest, that’s just, just how it works? I’m sorry”, he lunges forward and places an apologising hand on her arm, only to tear it away as he realises it’s probably just making it all worse.

“You’re a fucking mess”, Clarke finally says, and he’s sure she has learned that from Raven. But at least the corners of the mouth are tugging up, meaning he can breathe a little easier. She fishes her bandage rags from the boiling water—they hardly look cleaner, still red with surprisingly reluctant blood—throwing them into another bucket.

Suddenly she’s standing next to him, facing the other way as her hand lingers on his waist.

“Maybe we can talk about it”, she murmurs, eyes dropping on his lips as he looks at her.

“The handholding, that is”, she finishes as she’s leaving, and he’s already missing her hands on his skin.

“Real funny, Princess”, he retorts back to the old nickname, only slightly frightened about the fact that he can’t really recall the last time he called her Princess in hopes of irritating her. She simply throws a mischievous smile over her shoulder—unclarke-ish enough to leave Bellamy thinking if this is just another hallucination.

But then Raven kicks him in the shin, nearly making him jump into the campfire.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she asks, throwing another bunch of rags in the water, stirring them with a stick. He very mockingly mimics her voice, repeating the words like a parrot. She tries to kick him again, but he slides out of her reach just in time, a smug smile all over his face.

“Why do we allow you two to run the camp?”

“I’m the oldest”, he announces.

“Asshat, I’m only eight months younger than you”, she squints, reaching to poke his side with the stick. This time, he’s too slow and gets a nice wet spot on his shirt.

“The oldest by eight months”, he mumbles, eyeing his shirt and Raven. She throws the stick at him, and he runs away laughing just a little bit.

“ _I want to fuck you senseless_ ”, he hears her mimic him, and it’s probably the worst impression of Bellamy Blake anyone has ever done, and Bellamy just aims the stick back towards Raven, laughter still spilling from his lips.

It takes them few hours to figure out all the details of the first door, but when Bellamy finally takes the sketch to Celine, their wood-handling goddess basically, he’s kind of proud—they’re actually doing this, they’re claiming this as their land, they’re building houses. Hell, they’re making this their home for the rest of their lives.

Celine rolls her eyes at their drafts, handing the notebook back to Bellamy. He frowns, and she nods towards the corner of her place before getting back at what looks like chess pieces. In the corner, he sees a door—it doesn’t look like anything they had designed—and he slowly wanders closer, slowly dragging his hand across it.

“This is gorgeous”, he tells Celine, and she simply shrugs.

“I made it last month, took couple weeks.”

“How do you know anything about doors?”

“My great grandpa was an architect”, she shrugs again, like it’s nothing. Bellamy just looks at her, not sure if the dark-skinned wood goddess in front of him is actually only fifteen years old.

“Okay”, he says slowly, and she looks worried for a second, “you’re in charge when we start building houses.”

She clutches the chess piece—a knight, he recognises—closer to her chest, and Bellamy can see her eyes glistening in the fire. He looks down at the fire for a second, thinking they really needs to figure out a safer option to heat and light their tents, huts, their whatevers, but all those thoughts are gone when the girl runs up to hug him. She even thanks him as he wraps his arm around her, and he chuckles.

“No, you earn it. We don’t know shit”, he confesses, and she grins so wide Bellamy’s heart is still aching with joy when he leaves the tent. He’s still not quite sure how to be around pure happiness, especially when they’re down here where happiness is fragile.

However, Bellamy’s smiling when he enters the dropship, calling for Clarke. _Up here_ echoes in the walls, and it’s clearly coming for the second floor. The climb up is easy, except there’s grease on the ladder—Raven, he rolls his eyes as he wipes his hands on his jeans—and the hatch is pushed away only halfway. He glares at the hatch, remembering his very vivid about eating Clarke out up here before turning to look at the said girl.

She looks exhausted, not that that’s any different from usual, and her hair is tied up to a bun, little braids here and there as if after a few she had decided not to bother with the rest. There’s a bunch of different plants spread all over the floor, and a stack of small boxes—Bellamy recognises them as Celine’s work—in the corner. Clarke’s scratching her head and her brows are in a deep frown, and only now he notices a pen in her bun. She’s in his longsleeve again, sleeves pushed up past her elbows, the buttons of the front open enough to show her cleavage.

She looks incredible.

“Yeah?” she finally asks, and Bellamy has the feeling he’s been staring again.

 _I love you_ , he wants to say, but at the same time, constantly repeating that feels like he’s pulling her into something she doesn’t want to step in, like he’s pressuring her to do something about it. And that’s exactly what he doesn’t want—he’s not asking anything from her.

She’s not his, and it’s okay.

“Bellamy?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you thinking?” she visibly relaxes as she hums the familiar question. It’s like a game they play, something they both know and are comfortable with. He smiles the smallest of smiles, and she smirks, “if you’re going to say about fucking me senseless, I might tell you to leave.”

“Might”, he repeats.

“Might”, she confirms.

Bellamy huffs out a laugh, the corner of his mouth tugging up to a sly smirk. He takes a step forward, and another, slowly walking up to Clarke with his hand innocently behind her back. _Actually, I was thinking about going down on you, right here, right now_ , he wants to say, but that’s probably gross and he’s pretty sure it’s still sexual harassment, so he doesn’t say shit.

“What are you thinking?” he asks when he’s just a few feet away from her, eyes dropping to study the chaos of plants on the floor. She chuckles, shaking her head, but he can feel how her eyes never leave him.

“Honestly?” she asks, crossing her arms across her chest.

“That’s how the game goes, Clarke, so yes, honestly.”

She hums, saying nothing, and he thinks it’s utterly unfair. He always blurts out whatever he’s thinking—it’s like he has no filter, but he’s just so used to being honest to Clarke that telling the truth is merely a reflex nowadays.

“What are you thinking?”

“You fell asleep the other day.”

They speak over each other, but Bellamy doesn’t miss her words. They both turn to face each other, and it’s been a while since they stood anywhere but side by side. It’s exciting for some reason, challenging even, and the room suddenly feels like electricity.

“I’ve been tired.”

“We’ve all been tired.”

She takes a step closer.

“I’m sorry if you happened to have plans for that evening.”

“I did.”

Her eyes fall on his lips, on his chest, on the strings holding his fur coat on.

“You did?”

“Mhm.”

Her fingers move to untie the strings, pulling them loose one by one, and her eyes meet his when the fur drops on the floor with a small thud.

“What kind of plans?”

Bellamy’s voice is hoarse, quiet like a whisper, but he’s trying to hold his chin up, not give in to the urge to kiss her, rushed and bruising like he has so many times before.

Clarke simply hums, pushing his jacket off his shoulders, and admires the work of her hands for a moment before meeting his eyes again.

“The same kind of plans you were thinking earlier today”, she shrugs, voice casual, and her fingers pick a loose thread from his shoulder.

With that, Bellamy rushes to kiss her, pushing her against the wall behind them, making Celine’s neat pile of boxes fall all over the floor. She breathes out a laugh, and he sinks his teeth into the soft skin of her neck, hands ruining the bun in her hair.

“What were you thinking?” she asks, breath hitched, and he comes up, nearly breathless.

“Maybe eating you out”, he murmurs against her skin, pressing a kiss on the raw skin. He swears Clarke shivers at his words, and it sends chills down his spine, too.

“Maybe?”

“If it’s okay with the Princess.”

She hums again, and Bellamy goes back to her neck, until she tugs him away by his hair— _not where everyone can see_ , she groans, and he chooses her collarbone instead, lifting her up against the wall to get leverage.

She’s letting him mark her— _mine, mine, mine_ —and his cock twitches at the thought.

Neither one of them even remembers the half-open hatch when he’s letting Clarke down on her feet, only to let her shimmy out of her jeans and tear his shirt off. He forgets himself on her lips again, but he drops on his knees when she pulls his hand to grab her breast, reminding him that there’s other business to take care of.

It’s a new kind of intimacy—they’ve had sex, once, sure—and he’s intrigued as he pulls her leg over his shoulder, his hands rough on her skin. He takes a moment to admire her, realising this must be the first time he’s seen her half-naked in proper light. Dropping his hand from her breast, he drags it down across her stomach, settling it on her waist while the other one wanders on her thigh, from her knee towards her hips. There’s faint stretch marks decorating her skin, and what looks like a birth mark, and Bellamy must forget himself admiring her there too since she’s tugging his hair again.

He glares up, only to meet slightly flustered Clarke’s gaze, and he kisses her thigh, slowly making his way to her panties, laying a hand flat on her inner thigh, fingers sneaking under the elastic of her underwear. Her hand leaves his hair for a moment and there’s a quiet thud right next to him—her t-shirt’s gone.

“Are you sure?” he has to ask, looking up to his Princess before focusing on his fingers under the light fabric again. She answers by bucking her hips, and Bellamy instantly, by reflex, snaps her hips back against the wall with his hand.

She’s almost soaked through, and he lets out a low chuckle, because that’s all him. Unless Clarke was getting really excited about plants before he had stepped in. He lets his fingers move her panties aside, his other hand still trying to hold her hips in place.

A choked _fuck_ escapes her lips when he finally touches her, a finger tentatively sliding through her folds. The fact that she’s made him come and he hasn’t made her is nagging in the back of his head, and he gets to work. He’s done this enough times to know what girls usually like and what they don’t, so he decides to try out pretty much everything—heavy, long licks; small, almost kitten kisses; sucking, with more and less pressure; figure eights—and judging by her fingers in his hair, she likes everything.

Another stifled moan comes out of her, and Bellamy glances up only to see Clarke biting her fist. He chuckles against her, and again, judging by the noise she makes, it sends a new kind of sensation up her gut. He leans back, pressing his thumb against her clit, idly admiring how he’s making her fall apart. Snapping out of it requires a quiet _more_ from her, and he slides a finger in her, thumb still rubbing slow circles. Her hips thrust against his fingers, and he has to use some actual force to make her stay against the wall as he pushes in another finger, slightly crooking them to hit home.

And oh boy, does he hit home.

“Clarke”, he warns and presses his mouth against her again, and she comes before he can hardly even do anything. Her leg on his shoulder shoves his whole face against her, and he has kind of trouble breathing so he hums into her, only adding to her pleasure.

The pressure finally eases, and he leans back, wiping his face as he gets up. Clarke’s leaning against the wall like her knees are jelly, and Bellamy smirks, because that’s all _him_. He did that. She’s like that because of his mouth, his fingers.

“Thanks”, she manages.

“My pleasure”, he nods as he looks at her, drinking her in—she looks like an absolute mess, and he loves every bit of it.

“’was decent.”

“I’m sorry?”

Clarke smirks, because she _knows_ he heard her. It’s another game, a challenge, and he’s more than willing to take it. This is the fucking her senseless part, he figures as he presses his body against hers. She’s still panting, chest quickly rising and falling, but if she doesn’t want the time, he won’t give her the time—his thigh slides between hers, creating what must be a nice friction judging by the way she flinches and lets out a moan. This one, she can’t smother, and Bellamy lets out a smug laugh. She responds with her hands, moving them to palm his dick through his jeans.

“That’s mean”, he manages when he realises she’s deliberately not getting his dick actually out of his jeans. She lets out a self-satisfied hum— _mhmm, you don’t say?_ —and bites his lip softly. He swallows a frustrated growl, taking his hands off her and opening his jeans himself. She doesn’t occupy herself while he’s fighting with his clothing, just following his rushed movements and moving her body like she isn’t a distraction enough already.

He finally gets himself out of his boxers, kicking them off along with his jeans and shoes, and gives his cock a tentative jerk or two. Clarke’s fingers curl around his quickly enough, and he gives her room—she doesn’t do anything, however, just leaving ghosts of touches on his skin, and for a moment he wonders how it would be if she sucked him off someday.

But she clearly has other ideas, pushing her hips forward just enough to make his dick almost slide through her folds. He closes his eyes at the sensation, making a mental note to jerk off more often so he’s not so god damn sensitive when something like this happens.

“Is this the fucking me senseless part?” she asks curiously, and she sounds so teasing, so fucking hot Bellamy nearly comes right then and there.

“Clarke”, he growls, hands wandering on her skin, digging in her inner thigh and arse and side and back and everywhere they can get, really. She moans again, definitely failing to swallow that one,too. Her hips jerk against him again, and her name spills from his lips again.

Frustrated—and absolutely ready to fuck her senseless—he turns her around, pressing her body against the wall, and he sinks his teeth on her shoulder, pulling the skin, sucking and soothing it right after. She sighs, sounding satisfied.

“I like when you say my name.”

Bellamy nearly misses her words, her breath coming out in short pants.

“Clarke?”

“Yeah”, she pushes her arse against him, his cock sliding between her thighs and getting a taste of her wetness.

“Clarke”, he repeats slower, making the K click as he sinks into her, all the way with one, slow thrust. It’s still a tight fit, but the different angle seems to help—or maybe Bellamy’s just imagining. It’s not like he’s huge—he’d say he’s average, it’s not like he’s seen many dicks in his life, but he’s satisfied with what he has so average he’ll go with—but he knows she hasn’t done this whole sex thing a whole lot, so, yeah, he’s being careful, giving her time to adjust.

“When does the senseless part begin?”

He pulls almost completely out the moment she opens her mouth, just to push back in a second later, making her _begin_ nice and hitched. She bites back a moan, pressing her hands flat against the wall and shifting her weight just enough to make Bellamy move inside her. He slides one hand between her and the wall, setting it on her lower stomach, fingertips spread so he’s almost ghosting over her clit. This deserves him a breathy moan and a thud as her forehead meets the wall, and he’s so fucking close it’s ridiculous.

Starting with a nice, slow and steady pace, he busies his other hand with her hair, first moving it out of the way so he can bite into the raw, already marked skin of her neck and shoulder--completely forgetting about the whole _not where everybody can see_ thing—and then sneaking his hand under her arm and across her chest, grabbing her breast again.

Clarke doesn’t make a sound, and Bellamy can tell she’s trying really hard. He slows down and circles his hips, trying a slightly different angle as his fingers reach to touch her clit. Her nails make a nasty sound as they’re dragged down on the metallic wall, but he simply smirks, picking up the pace again.

“Come on”, he breathes in her ear, “Clarke.”

The K makes his tongue click, and she finally lets out a broken moan, which—as he quickens his pace—turns into series of moans after moans after moans, and when one _fuck, Bell_ gets lost among all the other sounds, he wonders if that’s it. He whispers her name again, and she reaches a hand over her shoulder to bury it in his hair, and as she gives it a nice tug, he feels the need to pull out before he comes inside her.

But Bellamy doesn’t want to lose, so his fingers work harder both on her clit and her nipple, and she comes undone a mere moment later, crying a soft _fuck_ into the wall and arching her back. He wishes he could fuck her through the orgasm, but he can’t, he has to pull out to come on her back—his fingers however, they’re milking every second of her orgasm out of her.

“Senseless?” he asks a moment later, pressed against her back, both of them breathing heavily.

“Hmm”, she breathes out, “maybe try again tomorrow?”

Then Clarke all but wiggles between Bellamy and the wall, turning herself around. He sees the spark in her eyes and the wicked grin on her lips, and he kisses her senseless.

It takes them thirty-four minutes and two arguments to clean up the mess— _you just had to come on my back_ being the first one, and _was the hatch open the whole fucking time_ the second. But they still crawl into their bed together, comfortably splayed all over each other.

Next day, Clarke can still walk and Bellamy is slightly disappointed, but at least she’s sitting next to her when they’re eating breakfast, listening to Raven and Octavia argue about who gets to eat the last frozen blueberries.

“What are you thinking?” Bellamy asks when the fight gets too tiring to follow anymore. He feels Clarke shrug, with their shoulders leaning against each other and all, and then she pops another peanut in her mouth.

“I love you”, she says casually, eyes not leaving the flames.

Bellamy coughs, nearly choking on his rabbit, and looks at her, incredulous. She gives him a frown— _you heard what I said_ —and he turns back to the campfire, feeling a grin creeping up on his lips. He almost wants to ask if it was his fucking skills that changed her mind, but before he can, from the other side of the fire, Octavia clears her throat, extremely loudly.

“Took you long enough”, Raven huffs and checks her nonexistent wristwatch, “it’s been like, what, eight months?”

“And twenty-one days”, Bellamy blurts as he’s absently poking the campfire. Clarke looks at him, this surprised yet smug smile fixed on her lips, and Raven just laughs, because he’s so fucking whipped it’s unreal. He clears his throat, trying to fight the heat from rising on his cheeks.

“And twenty-one days”, Clarke repeats softly, “you’re ridiculous.”

“Clarke”, he warns, his voice stern, but she just smiles.

She's his, and it's okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry this took a while but this chapter was literally the only one i had to write from scratch, all the other chapters were done or at least partially done when i started publishing this fic!! but i really like the way this chapter turned out to be, hope you enjoy it as well <3
> 
> your feedback has been amazing and i never thought anyone would really enjoy this story but :'')) thank you so so sososososo sososo so so sO much
> 
> ALSO THE HUG CLIP???+++??+++?+ if u wanna cry with me [elizatays@tumblr](http://elizatays.tumblr.com) is the way


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY this has been taking so long but i've been far too angry with the ferguson decision to focus on any fandom related crap so i haven't tied all loose ends of this chapter since i don't feel like focusing on writing but i also feel rude for not releasing the last full chapter when i have it pretty much done so ye here you go
> 
> fun fact: this was the first chapter i wrote for this fic in august oops

> **dead reckoning (n.)**

When all of the snow finally starts to melt and the nature surrounding them to wake up, Bellamy realises how harsh winter could be—suddenly he understand why he had read and heard so many bad things about winters, and why people used to be afraid of them back in the day.

Celine and Miller put their forces together for the first house. Bellamy’s sad to hear when his best friend tells him he’s leaving the guard, deciding to try his hand at all things stone. But then he sees the spark in his eyes and they drag their feet in the muddy ground with Celine, making drafts for the first house, drawing it all on the ground.

The first house is halfway done in the end of—according to Bellamy’s count—March, and it’s very simple, just a square with one floor and one, decent-sized room. It has no windows and the roof is leaking from here and there, but it has them all staring at it with their jaws dropping.

A good bunch of delinquents move in the house, and the rest conquer the dropship—the weather is getting horrible, sleet making their campground all runny and muddy. And as the transformation from winter to spring goes on, the nearly constant rain isn’t helping either—Bellamy idly plays with the idea that they were dropped in somewhere in England instead of United States, but Raven shoots that down with a horrible imitation of a British accent she’d learned on the Ark.

In the end of April, Bellamy gets pneumonia—he comes to Clarke one evening, telling her that this is it, that he’s going to die now. She rolls her eyes and orders him to stay in the furthest corner of the dropship, lecturing him on dressing properly when going outside and warning him not to infect anyone else with it. He glares at her, but she blows him a kiss, so he stays in the corner, alternating between sweating because it’s too hot and shivering because it’s too cold. He tries to do his part, tries to bark orders, but the kids just shake their heads and go tell Clarke about him.

On the early morning hours of the third day of him being sick, Celine sneaks into the dropship, throwing one of the old army raincoats they had found in this abandoned military space on him. She ushers him up, clearly not caring about the fact he could just, like, sneeze on her and she’d have this horrible disease next week. But she’s incredibly upbeat, and if Bellamy didn’t know Celine better, he’d say she’s drunk or at least high.

She leads him outside, to where Bellamy and Clarke’s tent used to be, and now there’s a house. It’s smaller than the first one, and it doesn’t seem to have any windows either, but Bellamy is still staring at it with his mouth open. Miller’s leaning on the door, and he jumps down for the terrace—the house has  a fucking terrace—pulling Bellamy into a hug.

“Figured you should have the next one, after all you have done and with you being sick and all”, he beams, nodding towards the house, inviting Bellamy in.

Slowly, ridiculously carefully he steps into the house like it might just break under his step, and he’s surprised to find that the house has wooden floor—from the outside, it looks like it’s standing on a layer of rocks, but Miller explains that’s just the base of the house and promises he’ll make them proper steps one day instead of just putting a nice, almost even stone in front of the terrace.

“We’re still experimenting with the roof, but at least this one isn’t leaking”, Celine mentions, and Miller mumbles _yet_ under his breath, making her smack the side of his head. But they’re both smiling, and Bellamy’s just so impressed he can hardly even move. His eyes move to the ceiling, admiring the handiwork of Celine’s. He spots what looks like a lantern hanging from the ceiling, and he points at it like a question.

“Monty finally figured some slow-burning atom or something”, Miller hurries to explain, and Bellamy snorts only a little at his best friend’s lack of chemistry knowledge. He doesn’t seem to mind to, going on about Jaxon making so-called cases for the fire and how they probably need to figure out how to make glass at some point.

“Oh!” Celine lights up like a shooting star, lunging to grab his arm, leading him to another door, “we made a bedroom for you, too. So far, you’re the only person to have one.” Then they’re both smiling like cats who just got their cream, and Bellamy simply _has to_ scowl at them a little bit. Miller opens the door, letting it fall open with small creak before stepping back.

Bellamy takes a step inside, shrugging the raincoat off as he does so.

He’s absolutely speechless.

It’s a small room, and it’s very dark due the lack of windows, but there’s another lamp standing on a container next to what seems to be his bed, covered with a mess of furs and blankets. He makes his way closer, fingers feeling the wall as he goes, and he’s so fucking proud of his kids.

“Reed and Jones dragged it here, we actually needed to break it to get it into the door, but now it’s actually better than it was, not crooked at all”, Celine beams proudly, and Bellamy turns to look at the two kids, smiling at the way how just their heads are popped in, like they don’t want to actually step into the room.

“Did you guys do this all by yourself?” he asks quietly, dragging his eyes through the room and the ceiling, completely failing to understand how two hardly educated kids did all this.

“We have a crew to help, but yeah”, she shrugs, “thanks for putting me in charge. And giving me Miller”, she finished with a grin, elbowing the blushing boy next to her. Bellamy gives them a smile, and he feels tears creeping up.

He’s so pathetic, getting emotional over a fucking house with no windows. Raven was right, he’s become disgustingly sentimental over the past ten months.

The old Bellamy would’ve yelled the kids to get out because he has something in his eye, but this Bellamy simply walks over to the two beaming idiots, pulling them both into a hug as he tries his hardest to blink the tears away. He doesn’t let them go until Miller whines something like _stop, you’re giving us pneumonia_ into his chest.

“Are you sure we should have this one?”

“We?” Miller asks with a smirk, and the tone of his voice tells Bellamy he knew all along it would be Clarke and Bellamy’s house, not just Bellamy’s house. So he rolls his eyes, “yeah, me and Clarke.”

“Positive”, Celine grins, “it’s a nice surprise for her when she returns.”

“No money back guarantee, by the way”, Miller grins too, eyes on the ceiling, like Bellamy actually just bought the house. Well, he supposes he kind of did.

They leave him with his brand new house, and he doesn’t notice the cup with _BOSS_ graved on the side until Miller’s far gone, so he just smiles at himself. Maybe he had never been a delinquent like the rest of them, and sometimes he had felt like that’s the thing separating him from the rest of the 100, making him the odd one, the one that doesn’t belong here.

But then the kids do something like this, and Bellamy can’t help but feel like he belongs here.

He sitting on their terrace when Clarke gets back with Octavia—he doesn’t understand why she still bothers to go to the grounder camp honouring their deal, when they killed Jasper, but she goes anyway. The 100 decided she should have one of the horses the grounders had given them, and of course she chose the weird mutation one with two heads. It scares the ever-loving fuck out of Bellamy, but Clarke calls it Timmy and spends a lot of time just taking care of it. Timmy has probably grown to love her a lot too, she’s even made it a great hunting horse—once they dragged a moose bigger than Timmy home, and that fed the camp for two weeks.

But anyway, Clarke stomps closer to the house, giving disgusted glares at the muddy ground like that helps, and Timmy follows behind her.

“What’s this?” she asks, curiously studying the wooden house.

“Welcome to our new castle, Princess”, he smirks, getting up. Her eyes finally land on his, and she looked unsure, somewhat puzzled even, so he explains, “Celine and Miller thought we should have this one. They already have two other houses in the works.”

Later in the evening they christen their new bedroom by going down on each other, Clarke refusing to have any mouth-to-mouth contact due his pneumonia and then wondering how soundproof their shack is. Bellamy wonders the same, too, and gladly decides to test it. For science, and all.

The kids on the night watch avoid their eyes the next day, blushing and mumbling excuses not having to face them. Clarke punches Bellamy’s shoulder and orders him to stay in bed all day, giving him medicine she had gotten from the grounders. He willingly obeys, feels his fever finally breaking out.

Besides, it’s nice to wake up to the light hitting Clarke’s blue eyes as she lies on her tummy next to him, wearing absolutely nothing. He shifts, letting out a small sniffle to let her know he’s awake. Her fingers stop drawing patters on the skin of his chest, but only for a moment—she kisses his shoulder, then continues.

“Bellamy”, she starts. He turns his head towards her and lets out a quiet grunt, telling her he’s listening and awake even if his eyes are closed.

“This feels right”, she says, quietly, “and I’m letting it.”

It’s better than the _I love you_ he pulled out of her weeks ago, and his lips curve up to a smile—it’s not smug or self-satisfied, it’s happy and sappy and emotional, and Bellamy hates it a little. He murmurs something against her hair, but neither one understands what, so they both let it slide.

“Do you call me yours now, then?” he asks after a moment, after she’s shuffled closer to him. She chuckles against his neck, her breath warm.

“I think you’ve been mine for a long time”, she murmurs before raising her head, giving him a smirk when he makes a noise, “it’s not my fault you’ve been pining on me since day one while I’ve been busy with running the camp.”

“Day one?”

It’s just a second later when he realises he maybe could’ve argued the whole pining thing rather than when the pining started, but eh, whatever.

“ _Oi, pretty princess, wanna get rid of your bracelet?_ ” she makes the worst Bellamy Blake impression ever, and he’s actually pretty sure he has never in his life said anything like that. He grins, gathering her in his arm until she’s giggling and he can feel her breath on his lips.

“’m fairly certain I never said that”, he mumbles, eyes locked on hers.

“Uh huh, whatever you say, Blake”, she replies, grinning.

That deserves her a frustrated huff from him, and Bellamy fucks her senseless that night—next day, Clarke’s walking kind of funnily and Bellamy actively avoids leaning his back against anything. And maybe he wishes Clarke would somehow cut her nails just a little.

In the evening, he lies in their bed—on his stomach—with Clarke right next to him. It’s quiet, it’s nice, it feels _right_ —a reflection of the flame of their lantern is dancing in her eyes as they study the ceiling, and Bellamy idly wonders how the fuck it took him so long to admit how gone for her he had been. Has been. Is.

“Everything’s going so well”, she breaks the comfortable silence, and as she gets a sigh from him as a response, she turns to look at him, “what if we’ll get another Murphy’s law situation?”

“What? Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong?” he snorts, finding it hard to see what could possibly go wrong now that they have the deal with the grounders, two and half healers, horses, cooks, people who can build houses…

“Bell”, she frowns, letting her arm fall on his back. She leaves it there, fingers ghosting over the marks she left there last night, and it feels surprisingly nice. Also, all sorts of turning on.

“Clarke”, he mocks, getting serious only after she digs her nails into his skin again, “fine, yeah, okay, what could possibly go wrong now? The grounders will start a war? Our kids will start dying? I will die?”

Clarke’s looking at him like he’s still not taking this seriously enough—he’s not—and huffs, taking her hand back. Bellamy shuffles a little, burying his face in her shoulder.

“My back’ll get infected?” Bellamy murmurs against her skin, his breath hot, and leaves a kiss right there. And then another one above that one, and another, and another, and another, until he’s half on top of her, mere inches away from her face, studying her features.

“Nothing will happen, Clarke”, he promises.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Bellamy!”

It’s Clarke’s voice. By now, after all this time, he would recognise anywhere, anytime, in any state of mind. She keeps calling for him, and when his name keep getting louder and louder, he realises she’s coming back home. And as he realises that, he can see her on Timmy, ushering the horse to move faster, faster, faster. Miller sees it too, and he hurries to open the gates.

“I fucked up, Bell, I fucked up”, Clarke tells him as she slides off Timmy’s back—the horse is still trotting, making its way to the rest of their horses, but she doesn’t seem to care as she hurries to grab Bellamy’s arms. There’s sincerity and panic mixed in her eyes, and he’s worried.

“I fucked up so bad”, she whispers, her breathing coming out in frantic pants like she’s struggling. His first reaction is to check if she’s okay, but his hands, his eyes, they find nothing out of the ordinary—nothing except the very fact that the ever so calm and confident Clarke Griffin is panicking right in front of his eyes, clutching his arms like her life depends on it, eyes jumping all over his features like a rabbit being hunted.

“Clarke!” he finally roars, grabbing her arms and shaking a little. They’re getting quite the audience too, whispering and watching kids gathering in a circle around them, but Bellamy can’t be bothered. She’s whispering choked words, spilling out sounds that make no sense to him. His lips press into a tight line, and fuck it, he kisses her.

He kisses her right in front of everyone, and if someone didn’t know… Well, now they do.

She relaxes against him, her lips slowly moving against his, and that’s when he pulls away—it’s not like he doesn’t want to have a good make-out session with Clarke, but he feels like this might not be the time. He asks again, voice quiet and stern, studying her eyes.

“I fucked up”, she whispers again, and her grip of his arm is starting to hurt.

“What. Did. You. Do?”

She’s hurt—he can see it in her eyes.

“I started a war.”

It’s a nearly silent breath of words, and Bellamy just barely catches it.

After all this time, he should stand by her, support her, tell her they’re going to make it no matter what—they promised that to each other months ago, that they’ll make it somehow, anyway, whatever, wherever—he really should. Instead, he flinches, he visibly fucking flinches as her words hit his chest like a stone. He flinches, hands leaving her arms and jaw tightening.

“They killed Rose”, she begs.

Bellamy remembers the girl she’s speaking about—almost blonde, much like Clarke, but much, much more fragile, more small, more sensitive, more caring. She is—was—training to be a healer under Clarke’s eye, and he knows she’s been taking Rose with her to the grounder camp.

“We had to mercy kill the patient, it was like with Atom, I—She’s fifteen, Bellamy, I had to do something.”

He takes a step back, and the same panic is back in her eyes, her hands still reaching for his arms. Drawing a deep breath, he lets his fingernails dig into his palms, fighting to bite his lip, too.

“Miller!” he growls, low and dark, eyes never leaving Clarke’s. His best friend is by his side in mere minutes, and he knows it’s serious. And all Bellamy needs to say is _get ready_ , and just like that, Nathan is gone, barking out orders, pointing at people, handing out guns.

Bellamy swallows, frozen still in the middle of their busy little camp, and his eyes won’t leave hers until Raven comes to grab his arm. And maybe he’s good when it comes to acting like the fearless leader, but right now, the look he’s giving to Raven tells her he’s scared for life. For Clarke’s life.

“I need to take care of her”, he says, and she nods, handing him the handgun he had given her months ago.

“You do that”, she nods again, their hands lingering—sometimes Bellamy wonders if they, she and Clarke, are just best friends or if there’s something more. Then again, he doesn’t really care, as long as they have protecting Clarke as their mutual interest.

Besides, Bellamy would totally lie if he said Raven didn’t mean shit to him.

But anyway, he’s kind of shaking Clarke, trying to get an answer to his _how much time_ mantra he’s been repeating for a good minute. Either she can’t give him an estimated time of attack or she’s in some sort of shock—his Clarke who has seen her friends getting killed before, his Clarke who has killed before.

He drags her into the dropship, sits her down with Monty who’s building something that looks distantly like a Molotov’s cocktail—what, Bellamy is not a history nerd, no way. No words are exchanges, the two boys simply share a look, nod and get back to work—Monty to his whatever, Bellamy to being a co-leader.

First, he checks with Harper at the gates, asking for Miller—his best friend, who had decided not to be a guard just weeks ago; his best friend, who had immediately taken the role of lieutenant again just a moment ago.

“Miller’s in the frontline”, she says, one eye shut and the other one trying to find something to aim at in the horizon. She can’t say much more before the first shot echoes from a distance—Bellamy’s quite sure they both stop breathing for a moment, just listening, listening and listening. They exhale, at the same time, when the first shot gets more than echo.

A second shot, a third shot, a fourth shot—

“Okay”, he says when he loses the count.

Bellamy makes it to the frontline with ease, using their tunnels and trenches. And it’s a real fucking war going on in there. He watches how Jaxon takes an axe in the chest, and he swallows hard, words echoing in his head— _what could possibly go wrong now?_

There’s a knot he can’t quite swallow, stuck in his throat, refusing to budge.

_Nothing will happen, Clarke._

“Okay”, he says, again, and an arrow misses him by an inch or two. But he’s too busy to notice, too deep in his thoughts. He doesn’t snap out of it until Miller kicks him to shoot a grounder trying to sneak in.

“Get your fucking head in the game, Bell!” he screams, loading his gun and muttering into it as he aims again, “if you’re looking for O, she’s in the third.” Bellamy simply nods, pulling the map of their tunnel system up in his mind. He counts to three, trying to stop his hands from shaking, and then he jumps out of the cover and into the trench, getting nearly beheaded by a flying hatchet.

_Nothing will happen._

_Shit, shit, shit._

He gets to the third tunnel quickly, but there’s not sign of Octavia. The fairly well covered foxhole in the end of it, connecting tunnels three and five, is empty as well. He leans against the wall, sinking down, and he’s just about to rub his eyes with the palms of his hands when he hears a voice.

“You’re okay, you’re okay, come on, just a little bit more, please, come on.”

It’s Octavia’s voice, echoing from the fifth tunnel.

“O?”

“Bell? You there? Come help us”, she begs, groaning mid-sentence. He lunges towards the fifth tunnel, only to find Octavia, Lincoln and somewhat injured Monroe who looks to be in great pain.

“She got a poisoned arrow”, Lincoln explains when Bellamy takes his sister’s place, helping Monroe to the more open foxhole area.

“You setting up a med station here?” he asks, watching Lincoln rip the hem of Monroe’s shirt, revealing the blackened veins around the wound. A quiet _holy shit_ escapes from her lips, and she curiously touches one of the veins, cursing out a mere second later.

“We could”, Octavia nods, and Bellamy nods, too.

“Get the wounded back to the camp when you can, take the third and then first, okay? I need to check on others. Take care, yeah?”

“You too.”

And with that, with their unspoken _I love you_ s, they focus on their own businesses, Octavia helping Lincoln and Bellamy finding his way to the sixth—if his memory isn’t bullshitting him, that’s where Jasper is stationed in.

He doesn’t realise until he’s there and meets Cato, Camila and Theo—the rest of the sixth team. He doesn’t realise until he’s about to ask for Jasper. He doesn’t realise until the words die on his lips, and his mouth is dry again.

“Are you looking for Clarke?” Cato asks, and Bellamy frowns, because Clarke is in the dropship.

“She’s right there”, Camila nods to her left, “I think Wyatt’s dying.”

Bellamy remembers Wyatt more vaguely than he would want to—he’s the 16-year-old who is at that awkward phase where all of his limbs seem too long and he’s too tall and too scrawny and his skin is covered with freckles and his ginger hair keeps growing in all directions but down—but he knows Wyatt is just a kid who does not deserve to die.

He hops out of the foxhole and makes a beeline to Clarke and Wyatt, both behind a big rock. Wyatt is leaning against it, and Clarke’s hands are pressing his chest, but the blood flowing through her fingers says all there is to say.

“Hey, hey, Wyatt, hi, what’s up, buddy?” he crouches next to him, taking his hand and squeezing. Wyatt doesn’t squeeze back, and he doesn’t really smile either, just coughs and turns his head enough to face Bellamy.

“Hey”, he says, and Bellamy tries his best to be encouraging.

“We need to get him back to the camp”, Clarke mutters.

“We’re too far away.”

“We need to, Bell.”

“What are you doing here anyway? Last I saw you you were in shock. Or something.”

Clarke doesn’t say anything, but the way her hands are pressing Wyatt’s chest ever harder tells him she doesn’t want to lose any lives today. Still, he doesn’t stop staring at her with his deepest frown, huffing out of frustration, because of course Clarke Griffin wouldn’t sit safely in the dropship when this kind of shit is happening.

Of course Clarke Griffin wouldn’t sit on her arse when she called it, when she knew something like this would happen, when Bellamy promised her nothing will happen.

“Okay”, he finally gives in, “okay.”

Clarke looks at him.

“We can’t use the tunnels, and we only get to fourth by the trench down there. He needs to be carried, I need to carry him.”

“Let’s get to the fourth and think from there.”

Bellamy nods, and prepares to hoist Wyatt up. He looks at Clarke one last time, and he can see her swallowing hard, eyes full of everything but hope—she knows Wyatt’s not going to make it just as much as Bellamy hopes he’ll make it.

“He’s not gonna make it, Bellamy”, Clarke says behind him when they reach the fifth foxhole in between the two trenches. It’s empty, which is strange, considering this is where Atticus, Iris and Medina are supposed to be.

“Wyatt will—“

And that’s all he can say before there’s something in his chest. It feels like a bullet, and as he falls on his knees, he’s frowning, because it can’t. It can’t be a bullet—his own wouldn’t shoot him, the grounders wouldn’t use guns.

He gets the whole weight of Wyatt on top of him, and it’s incredibly hard to breathe—his breathing turns into frantic inhales after inhales, he feels like nothing stays in. He feels another hit his shoulder, and three more shots probably ending in Wyatt, and then two more.

Bellamy can’t focus in anything but breathing after that. There’s piercing pain with every intake and he has a fucking bullet hole in his chest and another in his shoulder, and it hurts so fucking much he feels like giving up. His vision keeps blurring, even blackening, and Wyatt’s weight on top of him isn’t helping with the breathing.

He starts to panic, completely not acknowledging that the last two shots are from Clarke’s gun and that two grounders drop in the foxhole from the trees, both holding their guns.

“Sorry, I needed to take cover and—“

No, he doesn’t notice because he’s panicking—he can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe.

“Bell?”

He can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t—

“Bell!”

Clarke pulls Wyatt’s weight away, and he still can’t breathe, can’t—

“Bell, Bell, you’re alright, see, you hear me, right, come on, you’re—“

She turns him on his back, only to press her lips in a tight line, fingers ghosting around the entry wound in his chest. She’s mumbling something, dropping on her knees, but he can’t make anything out of it. All he can hear is screaming, screaming and bullets flying—dying, all he can hear is dying.

_What could possibly go wrong now? The grounders will start a war? Our kids will start dying? I will die?_

He’s pretty sure he’s crying by the time he reaches for Clarke, gathering some of her shirt in a tight fist and pulling her closer. He feels like he’s choking, he can’t breathe, and it’s terrifying.

“I can’t breathe, Clarke, please, help me, don’t let me die, please, you won’t let me die, right?”

And who would have known. Bellamy Blake—swallowing down blood and tears, begging to be saved in Clarke’s arms—is a coward. A weak, pathetic coward. Afraid of death, of dying. Just like everybody else. In the end, Bellamy Blake is only human, not unbeatable, not invincible. Only human.

She doesn’t say anything, and he can see it in Clarke’s eyes—the disbelief, the disappointment, he can’t convince himself it’s anything else but that—as she’s working around his wounds, and before he can say anything else, he feels the darkness calling.

“Bellamy, Bell!”

Clarke’s shaking him, and it fucking hurts, but he’s back and Clarke sighs, relieved. He doesn’t know when he let go of her shirt, but he’s reaching for her hand instead, and she grabs it in a heartbeat. She clutches his hand in both of hers, and brings his fingers to her lips, mumbling broken apologies into them, kissing his knuckles like that’s going to help.

And that’s how he knows that this is it. That she can’t just take his hand and lead the way, she can’t just make the darkness disappear, she can’t just carry his fucking lifeless body away from the pain. She can’t. She’s only human, too, and Bellamy can’t help but feel sorry. Sorry for the situation, sorry for himself, for her, for _them_.

She kisses his fingers—he can’t feel it but he can see it—and one hand moves to his face, gently touching his cheek. Her lips keep moving like she’s saying something, but he can’t hear a word. He’s not sure if it’s him or if she’s just too quiet—it’s only now that he hears everybody else, screaming and shooting and crying for help.

Clarke looks up, and Bellamy can see the tears she’s not letting go. She bites her lip, clutching his hand even harder, and turns back to him.

“Bellamy, I’m—I’ll get you out of here. I… I just… Need to get you… Away…”

Her words come out broken and disjointed, and he can see the panic in her movements—the way she looks around them and grabs him beneath his arms, the way she starts dragging him away… He’s sure this is it, he’ll die and leave Clarke alone in this godforsaken place.

“Clarke”, he manages after a while—or hell, he doesn’t know how long it’s been, he zoned out at some point. She stops, dropping on her knees and holding him. She’s mumbling again, and Bellamy can tell she’s been crying. It hurts, it hurts so fucking much he kind of wants to die. He tries to swallow the feeling, but he chokes on it, blood spilling from his lips and breathing becoming that much harder.

“You’re upset”, he murmurs. There are lots and lots of things he wants to say, but he’s Bellamy, so he doesn’t know how to say any of them. A part of him wants to tell Clarke that he’s happy, that he’s happy to go because he’s so fucking sick and tired of being afraid. A part of him wants to tell Clarke that he had been missing something for so long, that he hadn’t known what until now, until he fell into her arms.

“Yeah?” she wipes her cheek, smearing blood—his blood, he realises—on her ivory skin. He can tell she tried her best to be sarcastic, mocking even, but the word is desperate, begging. He closes his eyes—he’s tired, and he can’t stand to see Clarke like this—and swallows. He tastes salt and iron, and coughs up the latter. It ends up spattering all over her sleeve, and he tries to wipe it with his hands. But his movements are so weak he can’t tell if he even reached her arm before she took his hand between hers.

“’m sorry”, he tells her, and he hopes it’s alright. It’s quiet, and for the first time he’s wondering where they are and how the hell had she gotten them there. Then she lets out a quiet sob, as if she’s trying to get herself together.

“For what?”

And Bellamy doesn’t know where to start. Someone once said that before you die, your life will flash before your eyes. He figures he’s dying then, seeing flashbacks after flashbacks, the camera of his life focusing on lingering touches, softspoken words and Clarke’s blue eyes.

Breathing, he realises, is a little bit easier if he doesn’t try so hard.

“For your shirt”, he chuckles with a sharp intake of breath, but it’s not funny to her. He knows the look—that’s the look she has when she’s about to punch his shoulder, about to smack the side of his head. How she’s doing neither, tells Bellamy that yeah, this is it. He’s absolutely dying.

He gathers himself up against the tree, and _wow_ , it really fucking hurts. There’s one bullet buried in his chest and another in his shoulder, there’s blood in his breath and tears in his eyes. But he still holds out an arm for her, and she buries her face in the crook of his neck, carefully falling into his embrace. He keeps couching out blood, and it’s making her hair red, but they’re desperate and kind of going through a lot, so he tries not to think about it too much. Besides, her breath is hot on his neck, and he’s pretty sure she keeps repeating _I told you not to love me so I wouldn’t love you_ , and it makes him want to laugh. But he knows laughing would hurt like hell, so he just smiles, smiles until his cheeks hurt.

“Dead reckoning”, he murmurs into her hair when breathing starts to feel harder and his grip on Clarke starts to loosen. She lifts her head, looking into his eyes as if he has all the answers to all the problems in them.

“What?”

“It’s a noun”, he explains quietly, taking a moment to admire her features and brush a thumb across her cheek, “to find yourself bothered by someone’s death more than you would have expected. As if you assumed they would always be a part of the landscape. Like a lighthouse you could pass by for years until the night it suddenly goes dark. Leaving you with one less landmark to navigate by, still able to find your bearings, but feeling all that much more adrift.”

And for a second, she looks so fucking broken he wants to take his words back. Instead he kisses her, tasting nothing but blood—his blood.

“You’re not dead, Bellamy”, she breathes out, and they both know she’s lying. He smiles, because he knows her—he asked her to promise him she wouldn’t let him die, and she made no such promise, and he knows that’s because she doesn’t make promises she can’t keep.

“Might as well be, Princess.”

He chuckles again, and looks up, desperate.

“I wish the pain would stop”, he says, then swallows hard because, “I mean, I know it will eventually… But I just…” His voice traces off as his words form a lump in his throat. Or maybe it’s just the blood. Again.

“I could make it stop.”

Clarke’s words are merely a whisper, if even that. She doesn’t look at him as she says it, she simply intertwines her fingers with his and studies their hands with absent eyes. He knows she means well, he knows she could make the pain go away, could make him feel…nothing.

“Clarke…”

Her name comes out as a plea, but he’s not sure what he’s asking—begging her to do it or not to do it. He knows damn well she could do it. He remembers Atom. He remembers the tune she could as well be humming right now as her fingers are ghosting around the wound in his chest. He remembers seeing her fingers before, dancing around wounds and such like they knew exactly what to do, and he sees how lost her fingers look right now, dancing around his wounds… Yeah, this is it for Bellamy.

“Your right lung hardly fought it”, she says, “it collapsed almost immediately after the impact.”

“I never like the right lung anyway. Seemed like a proper slacker”, he snorts.

“If we were on the Ark, I could do it. I could fix your lung. I could dig this thing out and repair your lung and make it work again. I could stitch—“

“Love when you talk dirty to me”, he interrupts her and makes sure she catches his smirk. She blushes, just a little bit, but he’s pretty sure he can see a smile playing on her lips so he counts it as a win anyway. Whatever to lighten the mood.

They sit in silence for a while, Bellamy fighting for every breath and Clarke’s fingers still running circles around his wounds, clearly not having any idea what to do. He feels like letting go, but then she starts crying and he just wants her to stop, to stop feeling like him dying has anything to do with her.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to you in time.”

That’s what he makes out of her choked sobs. A fucking apology when she has nothing to apologise for. And she even says _didn’t_. As if she even could have.

“Couldn’t”, he corrects, his voice hoarse like he hasn’t used it in years, “you couldn’t, Clarke, and it’s okay.”

It’s not okay—he’s _dying_ , as the Whatever The Hell We Want Bellamy Blake kindly reminds him. But the Bellamy Blake who has Clarke in his arms can’t even begin to try to blame her. He’s not sure what he should do, of course, he’s never died before.

He doesn’t want to die. He’s crying, because he doesn’t want to die, doesn’t deserve to die.

“I think I need you to say goodbye”, he tries to whisper, but his words come out as choked sobs, because he’s crying and about to die and he’s so scared and he doesn’t want to die.                                

“No, Bell, come on. I need you to push through, okay? Do it. Please? For me?”

And he’s admiring the strength she manages to lace with her words—the confidence, the determination, the _hope_. But he doesn’t have any of those things, he knows he doesn’t have hope. He knows it from the desperate look in her eyes and the way her hands are trying to grab what’s left of him.

All Bellamy has with his fear, is anger. He’s so angry—angry how he’s not going out with a bang, but with a quiet, pathetic whimper.

They sit for a minute or two or ten—every minute suddenly feels like forever when he has to fight for every breath—and Clarke doesn’t say her goodbyes. She holds his hands, her forehead pressed against his shoulder. He wonders if he should just give up.

Bellamy’s the one who breaks the silence, and he does it with a weak grunt, a fucking _whimper_ , and he’s so fucking mad at himself. Clarke startles, jerks away like he’s burning. She’s back before he even fully realises it—a concerned hand first on his forehead, then two on his cheeks, her asking if he’s okay. He swallows what seems like a lot of blood and a couple of panicked sobs, and tries to smile.

“I always thought… that I… I was a bang person”, he manages, only to find out how hard it is to breathe. Clarke looks at him, and he can see how her brain is trying to work it out—trying to understand what he had just said.

“Of course you were—are, _are_. You are. A bang person”, she says without any hesitation, squeezing his arm gently. Bellamy utters out a laugh, spluttering fucking blood everywhere and giving himself another cough fit, all because, “don’t worry… I’m not… delusional. Yet.”

He really wants to explain himself. Clarke makes this sounds that’s somewhere between a sob and a laugh, and Bellamy smiles, and he really, really wants to explain himself.

But he can’t.

He dies in his Princess’ arms, with a whimper as his last breath leaves his lungs. Or a lung, he would reckon. He dies in Clarke’s arms, and even he dies feeling content, more complete than ever, he can’t fight the disturbing feeling in his gut—the feeling that tells him he’s leaving her alone.

He dies under Clarke’s panicking fingers—they have no idea what to do, maybe grab his collar, no, run through his hair, or maybe hold his head, no, no, the wounds need pressure, oh God—and broken sobs telling him he’s a bang person.

He dies, and that’s it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> am i supposed to say i'm sorry again??? beCAUSE I AM


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the epilogue and thank you for taking this stupid ride with me i am truly sorry for everything

> **epilogue: memento mori (phr.)**

“Clarke.”

It’s Raven who calls for her, and she turns her head enough for her to realise she’s listening. She takes it as an invitation to step closer and sit down on the log, too, eyes fixed on Bellamy’s gravestone—it says _BELL_ , and that’s it. Miller promised to finish it some day, but the way his hands were shaking and his voice breaking told Clarke he could never finish it.

It’s been months since Bellamy died in her arms.

“Clarke, it’s okay.”

_It’s not._

_I’m not._

Clarke swallows down a sob, burying her face in her hands. Raven frowns, but it’s not angry, it’s not confused—it’s disappointed, frustrated, and it’s because she knows there’s nothing she can do to make Clarke feel better. Raven wraps her arms around her, and Clarke buries a bunch of sobs in her chest.

It's been months, and she's still crying about it. Pathetic.

“Oh, love”, she whispers in the blonde locks, “it’s not going to be forever.”

Clarke had thought they had forever. She had thought the last time they kissed wouldn’t be the last time they kissed, she had thought they have—had—forever, but they don’t—didn’t.

It’s stupid, really, Clarke thinks. They knew each other for less than a year—they met when they landed on Earth, and she told him she loves him after eight months and twenty-one days. So it shouldn’t really bother her this much, it’s not like Bellamy is—was—the one big love in her love.

Except he was, and he is.

Raven sighs, and it’s heavy like she has a burden on her shoulders—Clarke realises she is the burden. Raven has done nothing but taken care of her ever since—

“You won’t always be here, either”, she murmurs softly, “you’ll die one day, too.”

It’s probably one of the strangest things you can say to another person, but to Clarke, those words bring great comfort. She lets herself fall deeper into Raven’s embrace, and they just sit there—they sit and sit and sit, until Clarke looks up and sees tears in Raven’s eyes.

She blinks them away before she thinks Clarke can see, and gives her a smile.

“I gotta go”, she says, getting up, and in Clarke’s eye, she looks like heartbreak as she’s walking away. And Clarke feels so very bad, for making someone go through all this shit just because she’s hung up on a dead guy and—

She lets out a choked sob before placing a hand over the pulse point of her wrist.

_I’m here, I’m here, I’m here_ , her heartbeat tells, just like Bellamy had told her.

“Memento mori”, she mumbles to herself, forcing her fingers away.

So maybe Clarke doesn’t know words, not like Bellamy did. But she knows latin, and she knows _memento mori_. Most of the latin she knows is because of her medical studies, but hey, a little extra latin never hurt nobody and so on.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“What does it even mean?” Octavia asks her later on, looking over Lincoln’s shoulder, studying the words written on the notebook with Clarke’s neat handwriting. Clarke rubs her wrist, and he swats her hands away, giving her a concerned look.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Getting a grounder tattoo had never been on Clarke’s to do –list, but hey, there’s a first time for everything.

Dead reckoning had been stuck in her head for months after months, and Clarke had waited and waited and waited for it to turn into solace instead of neverending agony. It never did, so she had to latch on something else. She was desperate, she was hurting, she was alone—the only thing sounding even remotely good was dying. And with Raven, that was it, that became Clarke’s solace.

The fact that she’ll die, too, brings her great comfort.

“Yes”, she mumbles, and Lincoln just nods. She has no idea how they do these tattoos, and even if she’s heard it can be incredibly painful, she doubts it’s going to be more painful than…whatever.

Lincoln’s being careful, breaking through her skin so smoothly she hardly notices at first.

“This is stupid, our leader getting grounder tattoos”, Octavia huffs, and Clarke’s about to say something like _what, Bellamy wants some too_ , but the words die on her lips, and she’s still pretending like he never left. Like she didn’t dig his grave, like she didn’t push his body in it, like she didn’t cover him with dirt. Like she managed to save him.

But she didn’t.

_Couldn’t_ , Bellamy’s voice says in her head.

She inhales, exhales.

_It’s okay_ , he says, but she’s already distracted by Lincoln, by the tattoo.

It’s not exactly painful—not after everything that’s happened to her—but it’s a sensation of some sort, and it makes her smile—she’s not numb, she can feel something, and she will die. So she smiles, laughs even, because she’s so relieved, and she thinks this is the first time she’s laughing.

She thinks of _memento mori_ , and Lincoln’s giving her a funny look, and she’s so fucking stupid. She’s getting the words on her wrist—a constant reminder that she’ll die—and she’s happy.

“ _Memento mori_ ”, she breathes out, “ _remember that you will die_.”

Octavia opens her mouth, and nothing comes out. Lincoln looks at her like she’s this broken little thing, like he feels sorry for her. And she closes her eyes, wishing she could just die, die, die.

It’s not about dying, not really. It’s about why she had wished Bellamy wouldn’t love her. It’s about needing to be complete again.

“ _Memento mori_ ”, she repeats, closing her eyes, “remember that you will die”, and for a moment, she feels a little less lost without her landmark, the lighthouse that she’d thought would always be there.

Maybe she can do this—be here, _here, here_ —for a little while longer.

Maybe—if she gets lucky—someone will put a bullet through her heart tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am @[elizatays](http://elizatays.tumblr.com) if u wanna send anon hate


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